OrcaSlicer has hundreds of print settings spread across multiple tabs. The Favorites Panel lets users pin their most-used settings from anywhere in the Process tab by clicking a star icon on any setting row.

Favorited settings appear in a dedicated Favorites tab, accessible by clicking the star icon next to the Process presets dropdown. Settings are organized by category, show their current value, and include a “jump to” link that navigates directly to that setting in its native tab.

To avoid conflicting sources of truth, values cannot be edited directly inside the Favorites panel — changes must be made in the setting’s original location, and the Favorites view reflects them immediately.

OrcaSlicer works exclusively in metric, which creates friction for users more comfortable with imperial measurements. This feature lets users hold Alt to temporarily swap the entire UI between mm and inches without changing any stored values.

While holding Alt, pressing Shift makes the swap permanent — it updates Preferences and AppConfig using the existing unit-change workflow. Currently active in the Plater’s Move and Scale tools, with expansion to the rest of the UI planned.

The Alt-key preview intentionally does not write to preferences — it is a transient display only, implemented via a UnitSystem singleton and a g_unit_alt_held global flag updated from the GLCanvas3D key handler.

Every time you slice in OrcaSlicer, this feature automatically captures a snapshot of the settings used. A scrollable history panel lets you browse past slices, compare the settings diff between any two snapshots, and restore a previous configuration in one click.

Built as a SliceHistoryPanel (wxScrolledWindow) and SliceHistoryManager with JSON persistence via nlohmann/json. Each snapshot includes a per-extruder filament breakdown and a compact diff view that highlights only the settings that changed.

Replaces the static text status bar shown during slicing with a live animated indicator. Each printer state — idle, slicing, printing, paused, filament change, finished, failed, offline — has its own looping animated GIF icon that plays in the status area in real time.

Implemented using wxTimer-driven frame cycling with custom wxAutoBufferedPaintDC rendering. The animated icons are also exported as GIFs for use in documentation and UI previews. Longer status strings are handled with logic to prevent layout overflow.

Replaces the flat sidebar tab buttons with smooth hover, press, ripple, and drain-fill transitions. A full AnimatedButton class handles per-button state with interpolated fill values driven by wxTimer.

A TabManager coordinator class ensures transitions are consistent across tabs — when one activates, others drain their highlight simultaneously. Rendering uses wxAutoBufferedPaintDC and wxGraphicsContext for cross-platform alpha compositing.

Experimental work adding new infill pattern geometry options to OrcaSlicer’s fill engine. The goal is to expand beyond the existing pattern library with patterns optimised for specific use cases — including improved strength-to-weight ratios for structural parts and patterns that work better with flexible filaments.

Currently in the research phase — patterns are being evaluated for toolpath correctness, over-extrusion at path reversals, and compatibility with the existing wall and perimeter pipeline.

Adds Space and Shift+Space as keyboard shortcuts to cycle forward and backward through the Move, Rotate, and Scale transform tools without touching the toolbar. This shortcut pattern is common in professional 3D software (Blender, Cinema 4D, etc.) and was previously missing from OrcaSlicer.

Planned implementation in on_key_down in GLCanvas3D.cpp with guards that prevent the shortcut from firing when a wxWidgets text input has focus, avoiding conflicts with typing in fields that use the Space key.

An OrcaSlicer-native version control system for 3MF project files. The History Panel automatically saves full 3MF snapshots of your project at configurable intervals, letting you roll back to any prior state with a single click — like “undo” that persists across sessions.

A dedicated Backup Storage Location menu lets you see where backups are saved, change the folder, open it directly in your file manager, and migrate existing backup files when switching locations.

OrcaSlicer’s accent color (the signature orange used throughout the UI) is currently hardcoded. This feature adds a user-facing color picker in the Preferences menu, allowing the primary UI color to be customized — including both light and dark mode variants — with a reset button to restore the default.

The implementation extends the system color picker dialog to optionally accept a title, exposes a color picker panel in Preferences built from a reusable create_item_color_picker_panel() function, and adds a static bitmap cube swatch button with a reset action.

Future development aims to expose multiple UI color targets, not just the primary accent, and to make the per-color reset buttons consistent across the preferences panel.

OrcaSlicer’s Move and Scale tools currently let you constrain to a single axis by dragging an arrow, or operate on all three axes uniformly. There is no way to operate on exactly two axes at once — something professional 3D software handles via the colored plane squares visible on the gizmo.

This feature makes those plane squares interactive. Clicking and holding on the XY, XZ, or YZ square locks movement or scaling to that plane, leaving the perpendicular axis untouched. This is especially useful for scaling a model to a specific footprint without affecting its height, or for sliding an object along a surface without lifting it.

Planned implementation hooks into the existing GLGizmosManager hit-testing pipeline, extending the GLGizmoMove and GLGizmoScale classes with plane-square draggable handles alongside the existing axis arrows. Plane squares follow the same color convention as the axes: red for YZ, green for XZ, blue for XY.

Previewing the sliced toolpath in OrcaSlicer currently requires holding down the arrow keys — there is no playback control, no speed setting, and no way to jump by layer. This feature adds a floating player panel to the preview screen with full transport control over toolpath animation.

A small button in the bottom-right corner of the preview window opens the panel. It contains five transport controls: jump to previous layer, step one move backward, play/pause, step one move forward, and jump to next layer. A speed dropdown (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x) controls animation rate. Two radio buttons switch between XY path mode, which traces the nozzle across the current layer, and Layers mode, which sweeps upward through the layer stack.

Playback drives GCodeViewer::set_toolpaths_move_range() via a wxTimer tick, with no changes to the underlying G-code data. The panel is implemented as an ImGui overlay rather than a separate OS window, avoiding z-order and focus issues on Windows and macOS.

Placing an object precisely on the print plate normally requires typing in exact X/Y coordinates. Plate Position Snapping adds a set of predefined snap targets — center, X axis, Y axis, and all four edges — that you can jump to instantly from a toolbar button or right-click menu.

Each snap point can be toggled individually in Preferences, so users who only want center-snap can disable the rest without cluttering the workflow. The snap UI uses OrcaSlicer’s existing set_center() and coordinate transform pipeline rather than custom positioning logic.

Works on single objects and multi-object selections. When multiple objects are selected, the group’s bounding box center is used as the snap reference, keeping relative positions intact.

When arranging multiple copies of a model, you often want to shift one over by exactly its own width or height — “move this one bounding-box to the right.” Quick Position Shift Ticks adds snap tick marks along each Move gizmo axis at multiples of the selected object’s bounding box dimensions.

Tick categories include: bounding box multiples (1x, 2x, 3x the object width/depth/height), plate reference lines (plate edges and center), and the plate center itself. Each category can be toggled in Preferences under Gizmo → Snap Ticks. The ticks are drawn directly on the canvas using OpenGL and disappear as soon as the drag ends.

Snapping triggers when the dragged position comes within a configurable pixel threshold of a tick, with a light highlight circle appearing on the axis to confirm the snap. The snap is click-to-snap only — no dwell required.

Frequently used models — test cubes, calibration prints, commonly requested parts — normally require navigating File → Import every time. The User Model Library lets you point CrashSlicer at any folder on your machine, and its contents appear in a quick-access panel accessible from the sidebar and the File menu.

The library folder is configurable in Preferences. Subfolders appear as collapsible groups. Clicking any entry loads the STL or 3MF directly onto the current plate without a file dialog. The panel shows a thumbnail preview (rendered from the first 3D frame) next to each file name when available.

This is especially useful for makerspaces like CRASH Space where members frequently load common community models — holders, brackets, and adapters — without leaving the slicer workflow.

Printing multiple copies of the same part usually means placing them side by side on the plate, limited by the XY footprint of the printer. Part Stacking lets the slicer automatically generate separator geometry that allows copies to be stacked vertically — using the full build height rather than just the build area.

The tool places thin disc separators between instances (generated as cylinder primitives assigned to a secondary extruder, or as a Z-gap if single-material). Each instance is centered and offset in Z by the part height plus the separator thickness. A configurable number of copies can be stacked per plate.

This is an Alpha feature — it works best with flat-bottomed, simple geometry parts. Known limitation: scaling a stacked group does not correctly rescale the Z-offsets, so resize before stacking. Complex overhangs and curved bases may not stack cleanly.