What changed, and when.

GrainDraft updates in place at graindraft.com/app. Your projects stay in your browser across updates.

1. October 23, 2026

   Splayed legs carry their end aprons

   • **Splayed legs, part two.** When a table's long aprons grow, splayed legs move outward with them; now the short aprons seated between those legs come along too and stay seated, instead of being left behind. The gallery's L-shaped desk has been re-saved with every apron seated, so resizing it is clean.
2. October 22, 2026

   Phones are welcome

   • **GrainDraft on a phone.** It is meant for a computer or tablet, and on a phone the screen is tight, but it now fits: the four workspaces are one drop-down in the header, Undo, Redo and Help are under More, the tools sit under the model, and the Make views scroll in one row with the cut list's part names staying put as you scroll sideways. The header and bottom line clear a phone's notch and home indicator, and typing in a field no longer zooms the page. The one-time notice on opening says what to expect; nothing is opened or changed by it.
   • **Splayed legs.** A project with legs splayed a few degrees, such as the gallery's L-shaped desk, opened with a red error on every apron joint telling you to straighten the legs. Those joints were fine; the message is gone. When the aprons grow, splayed legs now move outward with them and stay seated, like square legs do. A joint the app cannot carry is an error only if it is actually open; a seated one is a note.
   • **graindraft.com** offers *Open GrainDraft on this phone* where phones used to see only "send me the link", and links GrainDraft's Instagram account from the footer, About and Videos.
3. October 16, 2026

   Casework that checks out, grain you choose, lids that open up, and no more long freezes

   • **Shelves in dados.** A dado or rabbet meeting the back rabbet is no longer an error. In the joint dialog the shelf is the part that goes into the dado (it used to cut the dado into the shelf's end), Dado is offered for a shelf against a side, and a shelf touching the side can be made longer so it sits in the dado.
   • **Grain runs where you say.** Material → Grain runs along chooses the long side or the next one (a chest end taller than it is long). The cut list, the wood-movement check, the joints and the texture all follow it; Mirror figure is the appearance-only control.
   • **Wood movement you can set.** Screws, pocket holes and housings take a Wood movement choice: floating, slotted holes, figure-8 fasteners or wooden buttons. The shop packet describes the hardware instead of screws through the top, and the hardware list includes it.
   • **Through tenons.** Tick Through tenon and the mortise goes right through the post, the tenon reaching the far face.
   • **Lids and doors.** A flat part hinged at its back opens upward like a chest lid; hinged doors and lids count as attached and the hardware list adds their hinges. Adjustable shelves on pin holes in both sides count as supported. Tip-over also checks someone standing on a step stool's corner.
   • **Splayed parts.** Square up removes a tilt without laying the part down, and Level the ends bevels a splayed part's ends so it stands flat.
   • **Problems show up as you work.** Parts that share wood without a joint, or still share it after a resize, are errors at once. Undo removes the conflicts of the edit it undoes (the shop packet printed them), and a collision names the two parts that actually overlap, once.
   • **Faster.** A side drilled for shelf pins froze the app for over a minute on opening, selecting and Undo; it now takes about two seconds.
   • **Copies.** Mirror reflects a drilled side's holes onto the copy's inside face, brings the part's joints and swaps Left/Right in its name. Duplicate places the copy beside the model, not inside it.
   • **Splayed legs with mortise and tenon.** Aprons now mortise into legs splayed at an angle, Fit between linked mortises sizes them, and Assemble seats the frame. A new raked joint suggests a tenon to suit the apron (2-5/8" on a 4" rail) and lengthens the apron to reach.
   • **Roundovers that hold together.** Two roundovers meeting at a corner no longer fail. Boards made with Add board, or with joints, keep their edge controls, and the edges a joint protects show dashed. The edge named under the pointer is the one a click picks.
   • **Drawing.** Type a length after a Line point and press Enter. Slots take a typed length and angle. Fit sketch frames clear of the toolbar and the dock. A finished sketch stays visible until you extrude it. A second tap close to the first no longer makes an empty circle.
   • **Desks and cabinets.** Add board takes variables. Pass Through works for a group, so a duplicated drawer moves into its opening. Drawers default to sliding, with slide space measured from the box. A wide glued tenon is flagged for wood movement, and Breadboard is offered as the fix. Mirror copies a splayed leg.
   • **Smaller fixes.** A sketch on a board's face cuts into it by default; renaming and typing a formula is one Undo step; boards standing on the floor grow upward; pocket holes start on the inside face; edge labels match the view; roundovers work on edges away from a joint; Poplar; sheet goods in square feet; STL files stand Z-up; clearer move, tenon, pocket and Shaper Origin messages; the shop packet is titled after the project.
4. October 15, 2026

   Tapered legs, drawers on slides, steadier editing, and your older projects back

   • **Taper a leg from three numbers.** Select an upright leg, open Properties → Taper, and give where the taper starts below the top and the size at the foot; the inside faces are chosen for you. Machining and the shop packet describe it as a taper ("full size to 5" below the top, then tapering to 1" at the foot") instead of contour coordinates.
   • **Box-jointed drawers that fit.** A drawer box made with Add board could leave the fingers of three corners sitting in each other while the joints read as seated. Corners now always interlock, and an ordinary drawer corner no longer carries a "stepped joint" note.
   • **Drawer runners or slides.** Motion asks what a drawer runs on. On wooden runners it opens until just before it would tip out, and warns if you ask for more; side-mount or undermount slides set the travel from their length, check the 1/2" each side, and appear in the hardware list.
   • **One edit for all four legs.** Copies keep their sketches linked: edit one and choose Apply to copies. Mirror now works on plain boards made with Add board, and Duplicate is ⌘/Ctrl D.
   • **Sketching.** Sketches on the front plane were upside down; sketch views are now true elevations without perspective, so a part behind the plane lines up with what you draw. Select a line or outline to type each point's position.
   • **The parts tree.** ⌘/Ctrl-click and Shift-click pick several parts to group, hide or move at once; showing a hidden folder shows everything in it; copies get their own names; cut sketches sit under the part they cut.
   • **Smaller fixes.** Project → New project; fast typing in the extrude thickness field keeps every character; cuts whose edge meets a face at a point (a taper's top) now remove all the wood they should; Machining no longer lists a "shape the blank" step for every plain board; a "through all" cut finds the board behind the sketch by itself.
   • **Your older projects open again.** A project last saved before August 10 could open as the starter table instead, and every save afterwards said another editor had saved the project. GrainDraft now reads those saves, and a save it genuinely cannot read is kept as a recovery copy in the Project Browser instead of blocking saving.
   • **Typed sizes apply once.** A size or position you type applies when you press Enter or leave the field, as one Undo step; Escape cancels. Typing 44 over 40 used to build a 4" board along the way.
   • **Rotate 90° works on every board.** On boards made with Add board or from a sketch, the quarter-turn buttons did nothing. They now turn the board about its own axes or the world axes, and never push it below the floor.
   • **Add board stands parts the way you build them.** Choose flat, on edge facing front or side, or upright on end for a leg. Every board starts resting on the floor instead of half below it.
   • **Type a board's position.** Properties → Positioning shows World X, Y and Z for the board's centre; Y is its height.
   • **Joints say when their parts come apart.** If a resize or move separates two joined parts, the joint is flagged instead of looking fine.
   • **Sketching.** Finish Sketch stays in reach at the bottom of the panel, and finishing shows the sketch in the 3D view. A sketch on the front plane reports heights as positive numbers.
   • **Pockets are their drawn depth in the model.** A pocket or carved letter from a sketch was modelled 0.01" deeper than you asked in the 3D view, volumes and STL/OBJ/glTF exports. It now matches the depth in your Shaper Origin, DXF and shop-packet files, which were always exact.
   • **Smaller fixes.** A screw joint under a narrow leg starts with one screw instead of two crowded together, and when parts cannot be assembled the message says which part would move and by how much.
   • **Rails that meet a leg.** Add a mortise and tenon between an apron and a leg it touches, and the joint window offers to make the apron longer by the tenon, so the shoulder stays against the leg and nothing else moves. Seating used to slide the leg instead. Seated mortises in legs made with Add board now stay seated when you seat the frame again.
   • **Rotate turns every board.** Rotate's 90° buttons said a plain board had turned while it stayed put. Every board now really turns, and it keeps its length, width and thickness.
   • **Pocket holes and screws on an apron standing on edge** are sized for its 3/4" stock, not its 3" face. A screw that cannot reach through a part without breaking out says so and suggests a counterbore or pocket screws.
   • **Seating holds the leg, not the rail.** Every Seat button holds the part that stands lowest, and the message names what moved and how far.
   • **Clearer panels.** A board made with Add board shows Length, Width and Thickness in Properties, the same as the Resize box and the cut list; the sketch details fold away. New tabs are numbered (Untitled project 2, 3...) and keep the number visible; Move's Cancel leaves Move; Add joint says why it is waiting; a board's sketch and thickness entries follow its name.
5. October 14, 2026

   Drawers that open, signs you can carve, and a tip-over check

   • **Drawers and doors move.** In Assemble, Motion says how a drawer slides or a door or lid swings. Drag it open to look, then Check clearance: GrainDraft steps through the whole travel and names the first part it would run into — a door hitting the face frame, a drawer catching the rail below — and at what angle or how far out. A drawer's front and pull, screwed to it, move with it.
   • **Tip-over check.** Inspect → Tip-over estimates whether a piece tips forward: as built, with every drawer pulled out, and with 50 lb on the front of the open top drawer. It is an estimate from typical wood weights, not a safety test — anchor tall furniture to the wall.
   • **Text.** In a sketch, Insert → Text turns words into outlines for a carved sign or a maker's mark. Letters keep their counters, so the middle of an O stays standing when you cut them as a pocket, and the text always reads the right way round.
   • **Trace a photo or drawing.** Insert → Image puts a picture on the sketch plane; click two points you know the distance between to bring it to real size, then trace it. The picture stays on your device: it is never shared or published.
   • **Insert SVG or DXF.** Bring a template or a drawing from other CAD into a sketch at its real size; lines that meet are joined into outlines ready to cut or extrude.
   • **Offset, Trim, Extend and Pattern** in the sketch Modify panel. Offset works out a router template from a guide bushing and bit; Pattern repeats holes in a row, a grid or a circle, with an exact 32 mm option for shelf pins.
   • **DXF export.** Make → DXF gives a ZIP for CNC routers and CAM programs: every part's outline, including shaped parts, and each machining setup with the same pockets and depths as the Shaper Origin files, on layers named by cut and depth.
   • **Click again to reach behind.** Clicking the same spot a second time selects the part behind the one you picked.
   • **Contact colours for every eye.** Collisions are now orange, flush contact teal and designed joinery light blue, chosen so they stay distinct with red-green colour blindness. Red and green looked the same to many colour-blind woodworkers.
6. October 14, 2026

   The floor stays under your work

   • With the grid set to follow the view, the floor now fades out around what you are looking at instead of around the origin. Before, a project built far from the origin, or a view panned more than about sixty feet away, had no grid under it. Zooming far out also keeps the floor filling the view.
   • Sketching a line straight up, across, or in line with an earlier point now lands its free end on the grid increment too. Before, a vertical line could end at a length like 7.3127 inches while every other point snapped to the increment.
   • Dashed lines (construction lines, alignment guides, measurement previews) keep the same dash length on screen at every zoom. Before, they turned into solid bars close up and into a grey haze when zoomed out.
   • Saved views now remember whether the grid was shown.
7. October 14, 2026

   A steadier grid, and pocket holes in the right place

   • With the grid set to follow the view, the X and Z axis lines now fade out where the floor does. Before, they ran on past it and looked like a line climbing into the sky.
   • Pocket holes are now drilled through a board's real thickness and spread along it, however the board was drawn. Before, a rail whose face width was stored as its thickness got its pockets drilled the wrong way, both on one spot.
   • Raked parts with a tenon, and pocket holes running into a half lap, now build as closed solids instead of showing their uncut blank.
   • Drawings no longer show faint seams inside a face, such as the line on the side table's front leg where the rail meets it.
8. October 14, 2026

   Corners that stay put, and solids that are checked

   • A roundover or chamfer on a corner of a sketched part now belongs to the lines and curves that meet there. Moving points, resizing, or adding a point to a curve elsewhere in the sketch leaves it on the same corner; before, it could jump to another corner. If you redraw the lines that made the corner, the treatment is not applied, Issues lists it, and Properties offers Remove.
   • Every cut is now checked as it is made: a cut may only remove wood, and the finished part must be a closed solid. Box joints, tenons and pocket holes that used to leave hairline gaps or stray surfaces now build cleanly, and through cuts such as dados, rabbets, grooves and box-joint fingers are computed exactly and draw faster.
   • Project files are now version 2. Older files open as before; a file saved by this version needs this version or later.
9. October 14, 2026

   Cut boards keep their grain

   • A board with joinery now shows the wood each cut exposes: tenon shoulders and box-joint fingers show end grain, dado floors and tenon cheeks show face grain. Before, any board with a cut was drawn in one texture all over.
   • Upright boards, such as a leg whose height is stored as its thickness, show face grain down their sides and end grain only top and bottom.
   • Joinery X-ray now colours exactly the edges a joint or cut made, including shaped cuts, and never an edge treatment.
10. October 14, 2026

    The toolbar on a tablet

    • On a tablet, the tools beside the model (under it when held upright) are now the desktop toolbar's panels and buttons: Select, Create, Modify, Assemble, Configure and Inspect in Design, two buttons across. Tap a panel's name for every command it holds, including ones the old tool rail never had, such as Component, Duplicate, Pattern, Joinery and Variables.
    • Pass Through shows in the warning colour while it is on, on desktop and tablet alike, because parts can then overlap.
11. October 13, 2026

    A toolbar, project tabs and a drafting floor

    The desktop layout takes its shape from desktop CAD: a toolbar of tabs and panels, several projects open at once, and a floor that goes with the view.

    • The tools are now a toolbar under the header. Design, Assemble, Inspect and Make are its tabs; each tab's commands sit in named panels (Create, Modify, Assemble, Configure, Inspect, Select), and clicking a panel's name lists every command it holds with its key. A narrow window folds panels into a single button and then into a » menu, so nothing is ever out of reach. Double-click the open tab to fold the toolbar to its tab row and give the model the height back.
    • Open more than one project at a time: each is a tab in the header. The + opens an empty project, Open puts a saved project in a new tab, and switching tabs never loses anything — the project you leave is written to the shelf first and comes back exactly as you left it, undo history and all. Double-click a tab to rename the project.
    • The 3D view's grid now goes with the view out to the horizon, like a drafting table (Preferences → Grid can bring back the bounded square with rulers), and the view controls are a bar at the bottom of the canvas: Orbit or Pan for the left mouse button, Fit, Fit selection, Previous view, Home, the projection and Display.
    • The project tree gained Project settings, Saved views, Origin planes (turn one on to see it in the view; double-click to sketch on it) and a Joints folder; hovering a part lights it in the view, and a part's menu offers Isolate, Fit and Show all.
    • Sketching: a Sketch tab appears on the toolbar while you draw, with Center rectangle and 2-point circle variants, Construction geometry (X) for centrelines and reference lines that never become parts, a Dimension tool (D: click a line, edge, circle or slot, type the size, Enter — formulas work), Mirror (M) across any line, and a Sketch Palette in Properties with line type, display switches and profile shading. Sketch keys (L, R, C, A, P, V) work only while sketching.
    • Preferences is a window you can move beside the model, with Cancel, Apply and OK, a gear in the header and ⌘/Ctrl , to open it, and a new Shortcuts page listing every key.
12. October 12, 2026

    Joinery you can follow

    The build guide now shows each joint the way a shop drawing does, and every number a bench needs is on the page that needs it.

    • Mortise-and-tenon cards draw the real parts pulled apart, with the tenon, its shoulders and the mortise dimensioned, plus a section through the seated joint showing the depth, the tenon length and the intended glue gap. The tenon size is the size you mark; a Shaper Origin guide notes once that its pocket file is cut 0.010" over.
    • Grooves, dados and rabbets get their own card: a section across the cut with the panel in it, how far it enters, the room left for it to move, and where the cut starts and stops.
    • Every mortise, tenon and groove on a part card names the part it takes ("Mortise for Upper Rail P06/P09"), and a mortise near the top of a leg is also placed from the top ("5/16\" from the top end"), not only from the datum corner.
    • Square legs are described with faces, never edges.
    • Every part layout page carries a small key at the top right: which fills are cuts on this face, which dashed outlines are on the far side, the hatched waste, the tenon, the DATUM 0 corner, the grain arrow and the * mark.
    • Groove and dado machine setups print as tables, one row per part: face, position, offset from the edge, what fits in it, and the layout page.
    • Assembly glue-ups are drawn pulled apart along their joints with every joint numbered, and the part list is a table with a page for each joint.
    • The review lists each thing once, and a tenon shorter than twice its thickness is flagged as a warning in the app and in the guide.
    • Two fixes: roundovers and chamfers on half of a board's edges were cut inside out in the 3D view and exports; and the "could not close this part's surface" note no longer appears on parts whose surface is closed.
    • Printing in millimetres now works: with Units set to millimetres, the build guide, technical reference and cut list from Print shop packet are in millimetres throughout, including the page footers and the joint drawings. Before this fix those PDFs printed inches.
    • With Color switched off, the parts a page points at print as a mid grey, so their tenons, mortises and dimension arrows stay readable.
    • Full-size pattern tiles: the tile's label no longer covers part of the line you cut to, and DATUM 0 is always visible.
    • On a tablet, tapping the warnings count at the bottom of the screen opens the Issues list.
    • Fix: on a table with splayed legs, pocket screws joining an apron to a leg were drawn in the middle of the apron, with both screws on one spot. They are now at the end of the apron beside the leg, spread across its width, in the 3D view, the build guide and exports.
    • New: box-joint templates. For a box joint at the end of a square board, the build guide now ends with a full-size paper strip for each board end. Print those pages at 100%, check the 1 inch bar, cut the strip out, crease it on the dashed lines and wrap it over the end of the board, with each end of the strip on the board edge it names. Stick it down with spray adhesive or a glue stick and saw to the lines: hatched is waste, and the baseline is the finished depth plus 1/64 inch. Joints a flat strip cannot describe are listed with the reason. Switch the pages off under More options.
    • Walnut, maple and cherry now use scanned wood with real surface texture, as oak already did, and pine and cedar have new, cleaner grain. Your saved projects pick up the new look automatically; nothing about sizes, cut lists or prices changes.
13. October 11, 2026

    Shaped parts you can lay out from the build guide

    Part drawings in the build guide now show how to mark and cut a shaped part.

    • Each corner of a shaped part is lettered, with a table giving its distance along and across from the datum corner. Mark the points, join them, and cut to the lines.
    • The area to cut away is hatched, so it is clear which side of a line is the part.
    • Each straight angled cut gives its angle and its rise over run. An angled end is measured from a square cut, which is the number to set on a miter saw or miter gauge; a long edge is given as a taper.
    • A curve that is part of a circle gives its radius.
    • Curved and intricate parts get a full-size pattern at the back of the guide. Print those pages at 100%, trim them to the frame and tape them together following the assembly diagram; every page is numbered and names the pages it joins. Each has a 1 inch bar to check the print scale.
    • Patterns print on Letter or A4, and can be switched off under More options.
    • Screwed joints get a drilling card: where the holes go, a section through one screw, and the clearance, countersink and pilot bits with their depths. Joints drilled the same way share one card.
    • The part and joint index at the back is now a short joint finder: one row per joint card or setup, with its page. Each part's page is on the cutting list.
    • The shaping page now draws each shaped part inside its rectangular blank, with the blank size. The finished view appears only when a joint or cut changes the part, so screwed parts no longer show the same drawing twice.
    • The build guide no longer prints long lists of contour coordinates for a shaped part's outline. Use the part's lettered points or its full-size pattern. The technical reference still has the coordinates.
    • Drawings throughout the guide now shade the top, front and side of each board differently and draw outlines heavier than detail lines, so an assembly reads as wood rather than a tangle of outlines.
    • The cover shows the piece standing on its floor with one label per part family, next to a front or side view with its width (or depth) and height as dimension lines. Parts set at an angle in the model, like a raked chair back, are listed with their angle.
    • Screw holes on angled parts, like the slats of a raked chair back, are now dimensioned from the datum corner like any other part, and the screws sit square to the board. Before, the guide could only say "space them at assembly".
    • With every method selected, a machine setup prints once and names the other methods it serves, instead of repeating its table per method.
    • Machine setup tables list one row per part family — eight seat slats into two stringers is one row with its sixteen joints — not one row per joint.
    • The review page lists each item once with every joint it applies to, and no longer lists Shaper Origin omissions unless the Origin is the chosen method.
    • New fastener: 18-gauge brad nails. Pick two parts, choose Brad nails, and set the length, how many, and whether the joint is glued. Glued is the default, because brads hold parts while the glue cures. GrainDraft picks a length that reaches into the second part without coming out the far side, warns when a brad is too short or poking through (it counts the 1/32 inch a nailer sinks the head), and warns when unglued brads are the only thing holding a part.
    • Brads go on the shopping list by length, appear in the glue-up steps ("glue, clamp, then pin"), and get a nailer or hammer-and-nail-set setup. Nothing is drilled, so they never appear as a cut.
    • Part drawings in the build guide are drawn the way up each part sits, and say so ("top edge up"). A leg, which has no up across its width, is turned so the datum corner reads from the left.
    • Tenons are drawn as the wood that stays: the waste around them is hatched, the tenon length is dimensioned, and each tenoned part gets an end view with the shoulders and cheeks measured.
    • Each part has a numbered "Cut in this order" list in gauge settings ("11/32 in off each face, leaving 5/16 in thick"), with grooves first, mortises grouped by face, then tenons. The table of positions from the datum corner follows it.
    • Small features carry their joint number beside them, hidden outlines no longer cross visible ones, and the grain arrow sits where nothing else is drawn.
    • Fixed: on some models, Download PDF did nothing. The guide now builds, and if a PDF ever cannot be built, the reason shows next to the Download button.
14. October 10, 2026

    The project gallery: open a project, or publish your own

    Finished projects from the GrainDraft gallery open in the app as your own copy, and you can offer your own projects to the gallery.

    • Choose Project ▸ Publish to Gallery to submit the project you have open. You give it a title and a short description, GrainDraft takes the picture, and the dialog shows everything that will be public before you send it. No account is needed.
    • Each submission is reviewed before it appears. The same dialog shows whether yours is waiting, published or declined, and lets you withdraw it.
    • Choose Open in GrainDraft on a gallery project page to get your own copy of the project, ready to explore, resize and change.
    • GrainDraft asks first, and saves the project you have open to the Project shelf before opening the new one.
    • A shared link now leaves out two per-part notes kept for your own shop work. Links made earlier leave them out as well.
    • The shadow on the floor now follows the project you have open. After opening a different project it could keep showing the previous project's shadow.
15. October 9, 2026

    Red collision warnings only where parts really collide

    The red overlay now checks the actual shape of each part, not the box around it.

    • Angled and shaped parts no longer show a red warning where they only sit close together. A splayed leg against an apron cut to match, or two rails passing inside a leg, used to be flagged because the rectangular space around each part overlapped.
    • When two parts do share the same wood, the red box is drawn on the part that is shared, so it is easier to see what to move or trim.
    • Green contact areas and violet joinery volumes are unchanged.
16. October 7, 2026

    Work in millimetres

    Choose inches or millimetres once, in Preferences → Measurements.

    • Every readout, dimension field, cut list, CSV and PDF uses the unit you choose. Millimetres show at 1, 0.1 or 0.01 mm; inches keep fractions or decimals.
    • Type the other unit when you need it: **450mm** in an inch field, **18in** in a millimetre field. Formulas and variables stay in inches so a shared design means the same thing everywhere.
    • Snap and step menus offer round metric increments (0.5 to 25 mm) when you work in millimetres.
    • Your projects are not converted. The model is stored in inches whatever you read, and 3D exports stay in inches.
17. October 3, 2026

    Share a project with a link

    Send someone your project without a file or an account.

    • A **Share** button in the header (also Project ▸ Share…) uploads a copy of the open project and gives you a link. Anyone with the link can open their own copy — your project is not changed, and nothing is uploaded until you press **Upload and create link**.
    • Opening a link asks first. **Save and open** keeps your current project on the Project shelf as "Before shared project" and opens the shared one; **Add to shelf only** keeps your project open and stores the shared copy on the shelf.
    • **Stop sharing** removes a link early. Links are not permanent: when shared storage is full, the least recently opened links are removed first, so download a project backup if you need to keep one.
    • Everything else is unchanged: your own projects still stay in your browser unless you choose to share one.
18. October 3, 2026

    A calmer parts tree, denser dimensions and one-click Undo

    Small refinements across the editor's panels, from a design review.

    • The parts tree shows a row's drag handle, eye and delete only when you point at it, so a full project reads as part names instead of buttons. A hidden part keeps its crossed-out eye so you can always see it is hidden.
    • Project dimensions fit roughly twice as many values on screen: each dimension is one line — pin, name, current value, where it's used — over its formula.
    • The "apply on blur" expert choice moved to Preferences → Measurements, and it now stays set between visits.
    • When every joinery check passes, the Issues panel says so with a green check instead of an empty list.
    • Deleting a part, or a move that unlinks a board from its formula position, now shows an Undo button right in the toast. It only ever undoes that exact change — if you have edited since, it points you at the regular Undo instead.
    • Screen readers now hear selection changes and the running error/warning count, which the 3D canvas alone could not tell them.
19. September 30, 2026

    A shop packet in the order you build, and more room for the model

    The shop packet is now a build guide that follows the work, at about half the pages, and the editor gives the model more of the screen.

    • A shopping list: lumber by species and thickness with board feet, hardware and the tools your chosen method needs.
    • Part layouts show where every mortise, tenon, groove and screw hole goes, measured from one marked corner, and say where that corner sits on the finished piece.
    • Machine setups group every cut that shares a setting: one router depth for all the mortises, one blade height for all the tenon cheeks, each with the parts to cut.
    • Glue-ups follow an order you can clamp: frames first, then the parts that join them. A shelf in dados goes in as the frame around it closes, and a drawer bottom in rabbets goes in after the box. The Assembly panel shows the same glue-ups.
    • The review page separates what you need to decide from notes about the model, and a page index lets you jump to any part or joint.
    • The Print shop packet dialog starts with what to print, keeps decisions under Before you print, and remembers your choices in this browser.
    • The starter side table is built better: one-inch tenons throughout, a shelf that drops into rabbets with room to move across its grain, a plywood drawer bottom captured in grooves, runners and guides for the drawer, and a pull screwed on from behind the drawer front.
    • Dados and rabbets have two new options. Stopped ends the cut where the housed part ends; Bottom clearance cuts deeper than the part enters so a solid panel can swell. A floating solid panel with no room to move is flagged, with a one-click fix.
    • The build guide names each cut for what it is (dado, groove or rabbet, and stopped where it ends short), gives router-table stops for stopped cuts, lays mortises out at their tenon's size and gives the bit and fence for every mortise setup.
    • A screw into the face of a 3/4-inch board is no longer flagged as a split risk; a screw into its edge still is.
    • The editor is rearranged around the model. One row across the top holds the menus and the Design, Assemble, Inspect and Make tabs; the tools sit on a strip beside the 3D view; and one line under it holds Variables, Console and the status readout. The view is taller on every screen.
    • Camera controls are in the 3D view's top-right corner under the view cube: Home, Fit model, Fit selection, Previous view, the projection switch and Display.
    • Orthographic view (press 5, or the Persp / Ortho button) keeps parallel edges parallel, so Front, Top, Right and Left are true elevations and a true plan. Those views now frame the model whatever its size.
    • Parts are easier to tell apart in Shaded view: every board has a fine edge line and a slightly different tone, and the model casts a soft shadow on the ground.
    • Move's controls dock at the top of Properties, or under the 3D view on a tablet, instead of covering the part you are moving.
    • A tool switches off when you go to a workspace that does not use it, and Escape always steps back out of a tool, one step per press.
    • Make has one menu: the views to review on top and the files to produce below.
    • On a smaller laptop screen the side panels fold away so the model keeps the width; Properties opens over the edge of the view only while a part is selected.
    • On a tablet the tools sit in a rail beside the model, or a bar under it in portrait. The project list opens only when you ask for it, and Properties opens beside or under the model without dimming it.
    • Resize handles keep one size on screen, are large enough for a fingertip, and no longer overlap on thin boards. Grid labels name their axis and stay off the model.
    • Small grey text is easier to read, and instructions are no longer repeated in a pop-up message.
20. September 28, 2026

    Faster resizing and safer projects

    Resizing a joined table now keeps up with the pointer, and your work is better protected.

    • Resizing a model whose joints are seated takes milliseconds per change instead of about a second. GrainDraft only checks boards that can touch and reuses parts it has already cut.
    • Shop packets are laid out in the background, so a long packet no longer freezes the editor.
    • The Project shelf says whether this browser will keep your projects, with a Keep projects button.
    • If GrainDraft hits an unexpected error, a recovery screen lets you download the model that was open, including unsaved changes. Saving stops at the error, so your last good version stays in the browser.
    • A damaged .graindraft file is refused before import, naming the affected parts. Your open project is not changed.
    • Faster first load and lighter wood textures.
    • Links from graindraft.com can open the side-table example. GrainDraft asks first and saves the project you have open to the Project shelf before switching.
    • On a phone, GrainDraft says once that it is built for a computer or tablet, with a link to what it makes.
    • Joint pages in the shop packet name the joint in words ("Mortise and tenon") instead of an internal label.
21. September 11, 2026

    Readable drawings, a shop guide and sheet layouts

    • A new drawing engine for packet illustrations: clean visible edges without triangle artifacts, and labelled detail windows.
    • The default shop packet is now a step-by-step guide with stock layouts, exact machining depths, face datums, enlarged box joints and CUT/KEEP patterns. The technical reference is still available.
    • Lay out plywood and MDF parts on quarter (24 × 48), half (48 × 48) or full (48 × 96) sheets.
    • A pencil-marking PDF for sheet goods: every sheet, each part's position measured from a datum corner, dotted construction guides, and any parts that did not fit.
    • Enter kerf in millimetres or inches. The project keeps the exact value.
    • Shaper Origin box-joint files no longer put dogbones on open stock edges, and enclosed corners keep their relief. Download older box-joint SVGs again.
    • CSV and clipboard cut lists no longer add kerf to each part's dimensions.
22. September 10, 2026

    Preferences and a simpler Project menu

    • One Preferences window for appearance, measurements, grid and snapping. Preferences stay in this browser and never change a project.
    • A simpler Project menu. Portable .graindraft files are imported from Open.
23. September 9, 2026

    Sharper sketching and a reliability pass

    • The sketch grid lines up with the sketch's datum corner. Snap markers and a crosshair show exactly where a fine snap lands.
    • Crisper edges on cut parts in the 3D view.
    • Two open tabs can no longer overwrite each other's saves. The tab that loses keeps its changes and tells you.
    • Duplicate and Pattern make fully independent copies, including sketches and cuts. Mirror refuses shapes it cannot reflect exactly.
    • Renaming a dimension updates every formula that uses it, and deleting something still in use asks you to review what depends on it first.
    • STL and OBJ exports are in inches; glTF exports are in metres.
24. September 8, 2026

    Exact moves, display styles and a new address

    • Move parts by typing exact inches, in World or Part directions, with snapping and collision limits. Nothing moves until you Apply.
    • On tablets, Move adds an axis pad, nudges, Fine mode, fraction keys and larger controls.
    • A Display panel with Shaded, Outlines and Joinery X-ray styles. X-ray can focus on the selected parts.
    • Move a whole component as one group.
    • Shaper Origin setups mark their datum corner on the setup page and the SVG.
    • GrainDraft now lives at graindraft.com/app/. The old hobbybuddy.ca address stays available so projects saved there can be downloaded.
25. September 7, 2026

    The right tools for each stage

    Design, Assemble, Inspect and Make have focused layouts, with camera and panel memory during your session.

    • Add a board by entering exact dimensions and stock, without starting from an empty sketch.
    • Preview which parts and joints a dimension change affects before applying it, and save named size presets.
    • Stock length, width and thickness use consistent fraction or decimal display, with approximation marks where a value is rounded.
    • Step through findings, preview supported fixes and save inspection views with your project.
    • Search parts and commands by name, material, joint or operation with Cmd/Ctrl K.
    • The Make navigation reaches stock, materials, machining, assembly, sheet layouts and shop-packet options.