Interface and Tool Organization

A comprehensive walkthrough of Jupiter's user interface, tool regions, canvas gestures, and analysis views.

Home Screen

When opening http://localhost:5173, you will see the project management dashboard listing all your models as project cards.

• New Project: Creates an empty model and opens the editor immediately.
• Left Sidebar: Shortcuts to My Projects, Favorites, Recent, Execution History, and Settings (theme and language switcher).
• Click any project card to open it in the editor.

The Model Editor

The editor is where you spend most of your time: constructing the net, configuring parameters and metrics, and running simulations.

1 · Toolbar (Left)

Selects what clicking the canvas does:

• Select: Move and box-select elements.
• Place: Adds places (circles) to hold tokens.
• Transitions:
  • Immediate: Solid rectangle, fires in zero time.
  • Exponential: Outlined rectangle with exponential delay.
  • Deterministic: Outlined rectangle with fixed constant delay.
• Arc: Directed connection for consuming and producing tokens.
• Inhibitor Arc: Line terminating with a circle that prevents firing while tokens exist.
• Visuals: Rectangles, text boxes, and sticky notes for annotating the diagram (ignored by the calculation engine).
• Undo / Redo: Revision history controls.

Hovering over any tool displays its name and keyboard shortcut.

2 · Modeling Canvas (Center)

The infinite vector canvas where you build your Petri net:

Action	Touchpad	Mouse
Pan canvas	Two-finger drag	Middle-click drag or Shift + wheel
Zoom	Pinch gesture	Ctrl + mouse wheel
Reset zoom and center (100%)	Ctrl+0	Ctrl+0

The zoom control in the bottom-right corner also provides manual scale controls.

3 · Model Inspector Panel (Right)

Displays metadata, global properties, and the selected element's settings:

• Model Tree: Count and hierarchy of places, transitions, and arcs.
• Time Unit: Global time unit of the model (ms, s, min, h, d).
• Parameters: Constants and derived variables with controls to add (+), highlight usage, edit, or delete.
• Metrics: Formulas defining performance queries.
• Properties: When an element is selected, this panel displays its specific attributes (name, initial marking, delay, distribution, priority, weight, etc.).
• Simulate & Analyze: Buttons at the bottom to configure and run simulations or view graphs.

4 · Top Menus

• File:
  • Save / Auto-save: Keeps changes in sync automatically.
  • Import (Local): Loads a model .json file.
  • Export (Local): Saves the current model as .json for Git versioning or sharing.
  • Export PNG / Export PDF: Exports vector/raster image of the diagram for research papers or reports.
• Edit: Standard copy, paste, duplicate, and deletion actions.
• View: Snap-to-grid, alignment helpers, and visual annotations toggle (Ctrl+Shift+V).

Canvas Layers

Visual grouping rectangles, notes, and labels help organize large architectures without impacting calculations (the engine ignores annotations completely):

• Items above Model Net render over nodes (foreground callouts and titles).
• Items below render behind nodes (background bounding boxes).
• Eye icon: Toggles element visibility.
• Lock icon: Prevents selection so you can draw and select nodes over background boxes without moving them by accident.
• Keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+] and Ctrl+[ move items up and down the stack.

Analysis Screen

Accessed via the Analyze button or automatically upon simulation completion:

1. Results: Final estimates for each metric with statistical margins of error, convergence charts, and validation warnings.
2. Scenarios: Automated parametric studies sweeping variables over continuous ranges.
3. History: Archive of past runs with saved models and configurations.

Quick Reference Table

If you want to...	Go to
Create a new model	Home screen → New Project
Open an existing JSON model	Editor → Menu File → Import (Local)
Add a place or transition	Left toolbar
Edit parameters and metrics	Right panel
Choose global time unit	Top of the right panel
Run a simulation	Click Simulate at the bottom of the right panel
View plots and tables	Click Analyze at the bottom of the right panel
Compare scenarios over a range	Analysis screen → Scenarios tab
Export model definition as JSON	Editor → Menu File → Export (Local)
Export publication diagram	Editor → Menu File → Export PDF / PNG

Next steps

Learn how to build Petri nets in 2 · Model Building.