EZDXF-BROWSE(1)

💖 NAME 💖

ok bestie, meet ezdxf browse — it's the PyQt DXF structure browser, and it exists for DXF debugging and for curious people (so, literally you 🫶). You're reading EZDXF-BROWSE(1), manual section 1.

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

ezdxf browse [-h] [-l LINE] [-g HANDLE] [FILE]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So the browse command pops open a DXF structure browser and lets you snoop around the internals of a DXF file without interpreting the content. No translation, no vibes-based guessing, just the raw structure laid out for you.

What is it actually for? Debugging invalid DXF files — the ones that flat-out refuse to load through ezdxf.readfile() or ezdxf.recover.readfile(). Those files are giving broken, and this is how you go look at them directly. 🔍

🧮 LINE NUMBERS

The low level tag loader ignores DXF comments (group code 999). Which means: if your DXF file has comments in it, the line numbers shown in the DXF browser are not synchronized. 😭

Want them synced? Run the ezdxf-strip(1) command beforehand to strip all the comments out of the DXF file. That's the move. periodt.

🖼️ GUI FEATURES

The tree view on the left shows the outline of the DXF file. And the details are doing the most, so listen up:

• The number in round brackets on the right side of each item = the count of structure entities within the structure layer.
• The value in angle brackets on the left side = the entity handle.

The right list view shows the entity content as DXF tags. Colour coding, because of course:

• Structure tags (data type <ctrl>) are shown in blue.
• A double click on a reference handle (datatype <ref>) jumps to the referenced entity.
• Reference handles of non-existent targets are shown in red 🚩 (they're not okay).

Clicking on the first structure tag in the list opens the DXF reference provided by Autodesk in the standard web browser. Iconic. 🌐

🔄 AUTO RELOAD

The browser automatically displays a dialog for reloading DXF files if they've been modified by an external application. It's looking out for you like that. 💅

🎀 MENUS AND SHORTCUTS 🎀

File Menu

• Open DXF file... — Ctrl+O
• Reload DXF file — Ctrl+R
• Open in Text Editor — Ctrl+T, open the DXF file in the associated text editor at the current location
• Export DXF Entity... — Ctrl+E, export the current DXF entity shown in the list view as text file
• Copy selected DXF Tags to Clipboard — Ctrl+C, copy the current selected DXF tags into the clipboard
• Copy DXF Entity to Clipboard — Ctrl+Shift+C, copy all DXF tags of the current DXF entity shown in the list view into the clipboard
• Quit — Ctrl+Q

Navigate Menu

• Go to Handle... — Ctrl+G
• Go to Line... — Ctrl+L
• Find Text... — Ctrl+F, opens the find text dialog
• Next Entity — Ctrl+Right, go to the next entity in the DXF structure
• Previous Entity — Ctrl+Right, go to the previous entity in the DXF structure
• Show Entity in TreeView — Ctrl+Down, expand the left tree view to the currently displayed entity in the list view – this does not happen automatically for performance reasons
• Entity History Back — Alt+Left
• Entity History Forward — Alt+Right
• Go to HEADERS Section — Shift+H
• Go to BLOCKS Section — Shift+B
• Go to ENTITIES Section — Shift+E
• Go to OBJECTS Section — Shift+O

Bookmarks Menu

• Store Bookmark... — Ctrl+Shift+B, store current location as named bookmark
• Go to Bookmark... — Ctrl+B, go to stored location

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⚙️ OPTIONS ⚙️

📌 POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS

• FILE — DXF file to browse

🎛️ OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS

• -h, --help — show a help message and exit
• -l LINE, --line LINE — go to line number
• -g HANDLE, --handle HANDLE — go to entity by HANDLE, and heads up: HANDLE has to be a hex value without any prefix like 'fefe'

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🌱 ENVIRONMENT

See ezdxf(1).

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📁 FILES

See ezdxf(1).

The browse command stores options in the config file, e.g. for the Notepad++ on Windows:

[browse-command]

text_editor = "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" "{filename}" -n{num}
icon_size = 32

text_editor is a simple format string:

text_editor.format(filename="test.dxf", num=100)

Quote commands including spaces and always quote the filename argument! 💀

For xed(1) on Linux Mint use (note: absolute path to executable):

[browse-command]

text_editor = /usr/bin/xed "{filename}" +{num}
icon_size = 32

For gedit(1) use (untested):

[browse-command]

text_editor = /usr/bin/gedit +{num} "{filename}"
icon_size = 32

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🍓 EXAMPLES

Browse the internal structure of a DXF file like a file system:

$ ezdxf browse gear.dxf

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👀 SEE ALSO

• ezdxf(1)
• ezdxf-audit(1), ezdxf-draw(1), ezdxf-view(1), ezdxf-browse-acis(1), ezdxf-strip(1), ezdxf-config(1), ezdxf-info(1), ezdxf-hpgl(1)

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ok that's the whole page, you ate that 💅 this one's from May 2024 and it's living under the name EZDXF-BROWSE(1) — go forth and debug, bestie 🦋✨