Settings, Robot Config, and Map Editing

A common source of confusion: “where do I configure X?” Robot configuration is split across three distinct UI surfaces, each owning a different category of settings. Understanding the split is the key insight:

Surface	How to open	Owns
Settings Modal	⚙ gear icon in the global navbar	Flowchart orientation, auto-layout, step indexing, keyboard shortcuts
Robot Config Panel	Box icon in the right tool stripe	Sensor placement, rotation center, drivetrain kinematics
Table panel — Edit map	Pencil icon in the Table Visualization panel header	Map drawing (lines, walls, background image)
Table panel — Edit start pose	Flag icon in the Table Visualization panel header	Robot starting position and heading

Open with the ⚙ gear icon in the global navbar (visible only when a project is open). The modal has two tabs: Project and Keybindings.

You can also open the modal from the keyboard:

Ctrl+K / Cmd+K jumps directly to the Keybindings tab.

Project Tab

Controls flowchart-level presentation and the step index.

Setting	Description
Orientation	Flowchart direction: Vertical (↕, top-to-bottom, default) or Horizontal (↔, left-to-right). Affects how nodes and connections are laid out on the canvas.
Auto Layout	When enabled, the flowchart automatically re-arranges nodes when you add or connect steps. Disable this if you want to position nodes manually.
Step Indexing	Shows the current state of the local step index (status, step count, last indexed date). Buttons: Refresh (re-scan steps and update the index) and Clear (wipe the index).

The step index is built and served by the local IDE backend on your laptop — it does not require a robot connection. After installing raccoon or adding custom steps, click Refresh to update the index.

Step index statuses

Status	Meaning
`ready`	Index built and available. Shows step count and last-indexed timestamp.
`indexing`	Index is being rebuilt. The modal polls every 2 seconds and updates automatically when done.
`error`	Indexing failed. Error message is shown in red.
empty	Index has never been built. Click Refresh to populate.

Keybindings Tab

Assign keyboard shortcuts to frequently used steps. Once bound, pressing the shortcut while the flowchart has focus inserts the step at the current selection.

Requirements: Each binding must use at least one modifier key (Ctrl, Alt, or Cmd) or be a function key (F1–F12). Plain letter keys alone are not accepted.

The tab has three sub-tabs:

Sub-tab	Contents
Recent Steps	Up to 10 most-recently used steps, ordered by usage count. Bindings are easiest to assign here.
All Steps	Complete list of indexed steps with a filter box. Filter matches on step name only.
Current Bindings	All active bindings: shortcut → step name. Delete individual bindings or use Clear All to reset.

Setting a keybinding

Open Settings → Keybindings.
Find the step (in Recent Steps or All Steps).
Click the key icon on the right of the step row. The row enters recording mode (spinner).
Press the desired key combination. A preview of the detected shortcut is shown.
Click Save to confirm, or Cancel to abort.

Keybindings are persisted in localStorage on the browser. They survive page reloads but are device-local (not stored in the project file).

Robot Config Panel

The Robot Config Panel is a standalone right-side tool panel, not part of the Settings Modal. Open it with the box icon (robot outline) at the top of the right tool stripe.

This panel is where you describe your robot’s physical geometry so the simulation and path-planning features can render it accurately.

Dimensions

Set the robot’s width and length in centimetres. These values are stored in the project’s device configuration and loaded into the table visualization to draw the robot to scale.

Sensor Placement

If your robot has IR sensors, analog sensors, or other positional sensors, place them on the virtual robot diagram:

The panel shows a top-down canvas of your robot body (to scale).
Each sensor defined in config/hardware.yml appears in the sensor list on the side.
Drag a sensor from the list onto the robot canvas to position it.
The panel shows snap guides (center lines, edge lines) to help with alignment.
Set a clearance value (cm) if the sensor has a physical standoff distance.

Getting sensor positions wrong causes lineup and line-following steps to behave incorrectly during simulation and path planning.

Rotation Center

The point the robot physically rotates around — for a differential-drive robot, this is the midpoint between the two driven wheels. It is shown as a crosshair on the robot canvas and can be dragged to the correct position.

Adjust this to match your robot’s actual kinematics. Incorrect rotation center values cause simulated turns to produce wrong arcs.

Drivetrain Kinematics

Field	Description
Drive type	`Differential` (two driven wheels) or `Mecanum` (four omni wheels)
Track width (m)	Distance between the left and right wheels
Wheelbase (m)	Distance between front and rear axles (Mecanum only)
Wheel radius (m)	Radius of the driven wheels

These values mirror the robot.physical section of raccoon.project.yml and are persisted to the server when you edit them.

Table Map Editing

Map editing lives inside the Table Visualization bottom panel, not in the Settings Modal. Open the Table panel with the map icon in the left tool stripe (bottom section).

Table dimensions

The default table size matches the Botball game table specification: 93.08 × 41.70 inches, which is approximately 236.4 × 105.9 cm. The table cannot be resized from the UI — all coordinate input uses these fixed dimensions.

Switching to the map editor

The Table Visualization panel header has two action buttons:

Button	Icon	Function
Edit start pose	Flag (🚩)	Toggle start-pose editing mode
Edit map	Pencil (✏)	Toggle the map editor (TableEditorView)

Click the pencil icon to switch the bottom panel from visualization mode to editing mode. The panel title changes to “Table Editor”.

Map editor tools

Inside the editor:

Tool	Description
Draw	Draw line or wall segments on the table canvas. Select line type (line or wall) and click-drag to draw.
Select	Click to select and reposition or delete existing segments.
Measure	Click two points to measure the distance between them.

Line types:

Kind	Use
Line	Represents a line the robot will follow or line up on (e.g. black tape). Width is configurable in cm.
Wall	Represents a physical obstacle the robot cannot pass through. Used by A* pathfinding.

Switch between cm and inch using the unit toggle. Zoom in and out for precision placement.

Editing start pose

Click the flag icon (🚩) in the Table Visualization panel header to enter start-pose editing mode (without switching to map-editing mode). A bar appears above the visualization with three fields:

Field	Description
X (cm)	Starting X position, measured from the left edge of the table
Y (cm)	Starting Y position, measured from the bottom edge of the table
θ (deg)	Starting heading in degrees (0 = facing right, 90 = facing up)

You can also click directly on the table canvas in start-pose mode to place the robot visually. The X/Y fields update to reflect the click position. Changes are saved to the project automatically (debounced 300 ms after the last edit).

Cross-references

Step Library — refreshing the step index (Settings → Project tab)
Tool Panels — Table Visualization where map editing lives
Run Configurations — the run-config dialog (separate from Settings)

Written by Tobias Madlberger