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P&ID model editor ​

Opening a P&ID model, working with areas, designing from a brief, and how the editor saves your changes.

Last verified: 2026-10-25 Status: Current

The P&ID model editor is the page at /admin/pid-models/:id/editor. It edits a P&ID model (the company-level model that the Admin list manages) with the same canvas, stencil and properties panels as the Draw page.

Opening a model ​

  1. Open Admin -> P&ID Models.
  2. Click the model's name. The editor opens on that model.

If the model cannot be fetched the page shows the error. If the canvas fails part-way through loading, the editor shows a load-error banner with Retry and does not save: it never writes a partly loaded document over the stored one.

Areas and area frames ​

A model is divided into areas. Each area has a footer tab and, on the canvas, an area frame that marks the part of the model it covers.

  • Add View in the footer adds an area. Rename and Duplicate are in a tab's context menu.
  • An area tab with no frame yet is shown with a warning; its context menu offers Open Areas Panel to draw a frame....
  • The Areas panel lists every area and is where frames are drawn and adjusted.

Saving waits for an area frame's view to be created first (up to 15 seconds). If it is still unresolved after that, the save is refused, the model stays Unsaved changes, and a banner offers to retry or to discard the unresolved areas and save. Autosave is held off while that banner stands.

Designing from a brief ​

Generate from brief in the toolbar opens the Design from Brief drawer. It works as soon as the model's canvas has loaded.

  1. Type a short brief, for example pumping station, 50 l/s, duty/standby, and click Analyse brief. No AI provider is needed: the brief is read by keyword.
  2. The drawer lists the recommended templates in order, with a confidence badge and any warnings (for example a default it had to assume). Under each recommendation's kind (for example PumpingStation) the drawer shows the name of the library template it will place.
  3. Place on canvas places each recommended template that is linked to a template in your library, side by side around the centre of the current view. A recommendation with no linked template is marked (no DB template — will be skipped) in the list and is named in a warning when you place; a template that fails to place is named in a warning too.

Each recommendation is linked to a published template you can see: your company's own template for that kind if you have one, otherwise the newest published library template. Engineered units (the simulation-ready templates, such as the wastewater pumping station) are candidates too, but only those your company has enabled and allocated to you; one placed from a brief is placed the same way as a unit dropped from the Templates panel and keeps its unit identity, except that the drawer does not ask the key parameters first: the values read from the brief are used and the template defaults fill the rest. A kind with no published template stays marked as skipped. Placing from a brief never creates a Bill of Materials by itself; on a project that has a drawing, the BoM belongs to the drawing.

Selecting and placing symbols ​

Click a symbol on the canvas to select it; clicking any member of a group selects the whole group, as on the Draw page. Shift, Ctrl or Cmd adds the symbol under the pointer to or removes it from the selection, and a click on empty canvas clears it. Drag from empty canvas to draw a selection box: the symbols wholly inside it are selected (area frames never are), as on the Draw page. Clicking inside an area selects the symbol under the pointer, not the area frame. A symbol another user has selected is locked to them: you can select it, but moving, resizing or editing its properties is refused with a notice naming them (see Real-time collaboration). When the AI Assistant proposes a library symbol rather than a template, Place puts it at the centre of your view on the active layer with its next free equipment tag, using the same placement as the Draw page; it is refused on a locked or frozen layer. Clicking an entry in the Symbols panel does the same: the symbol appears at the centre of what you are looking at, on the active layer, selected and tagged.

Saving ​

  • Autosave. About 3 seconds after your last change the editor saves on its own, and the menu-bar status changes from Unsaved changes to Saved Ns ago. Each further change restarts the wait, so a long run of edits is saved once you pause. Opening a model never saves it; only a change does.
  • Save (Ctrl+S / Cmd+S) saves at once.
  • Edits during a save are kept. A change made while a save is in flight is not in the saved payload; the model stays Unsaved changes and the next autosave persists it.
  • Autosave does not run in template mode, while a load error stands, or while a save is blocked.
  • Earlier saved states are under File -> Version history....

Working with others, and offline ​

Everything you change reaches other people who have the same model open, and each person's editor autosaves. How edits merge, and what the Offline - N changes pending notice means when your connection drops and edits are replayed on reconnect, is in Editing a P&ID model together and Offline editing and reconnection.

Limits ​

  • Template mode is not shared and is not autosaved.
  • The offline list is kept per model in this browser. If it overflowed, the editor refuses to merge a truncated list (it would silently drop your oldest edits): the canvas is left alone and a notice stays up.
  • Viewers can open a model but cannot save changes.

Related: Drawing overview, Real-time collaboration.