There are five drop-down menus available from the OpenSim main menu bar:

File

The File drop-down menu includes the following options which allow you to input and output information about models and motions:

	For more information about models (including SIMM models) and motions visit Loading and Saving Models and Motions  For more information about motion data visit Previewing Motion Capture (Mocap) Data

Edit

The Edit drop-down menu is used to modify the following:

	For more information on editing muscles visit Muscle Editor For more information on editing excitations visit Excitation Editor For more information on editing markers visit Marker Editor For more information on changing preferences visit Preferences Editor For more information on editing files visit File Editor

File Editor

The File Editor allows you to edit the properties of the .osim and .xml files used in OpenSim. OpenSim model (.osim) files contain the actuators, bodies, joints, coordinates, and speeds of a model and use the XML (Extensible Markup Language) format. For more information about the model file formats visit Getting OpenSim. OpenSim settings (.xml) files contain, for example, settings for tools or additional data for models including marker sets, actuator sets, or control values. These also use the XML format. 

To open the file editor: 

Click Edit → File (.osim, .xml)... In the window that appears, locate and select the file you wish to edit.  A Property Editor window will open, listing all of the editable parameters, along with any corresponding descriptions, for that file. To change the value of a property, double click on the value, enter a new value, and press the Enter key.  To save the edited file when you are finished, click the Save button in the Property Editor window. In the image above, the gravity property of the model is being edited.

Preferences Editor

The Preferences Editor allows you to change user preferences for the 3D View window using the OpenSim GUI. To read about these properties described in detail visit the User Preferences page which includes the following options:

• The "Persist Models" allows you to determine whether the OpenSim environment settings (what models have been loaded, views, coordinates, etc.) should be maintained upon closing OpenSim. If this is set to "On," then when you launch OpenSim again, you will see the exact same set-up as before. This is the default. To turn off this feature, set the value for "Persist Models" to "Off."

• An option that is helpful in troubleshooting operations is the "Debug" option. Setting it to a value more than 1 will cause more verbose messages to be printed to the message area when loading models.

Tools

The Tools menu enables you to easily perform the tasks needed to generate and analyze musculoskeletal simulations. The following tools are available in OpenSim:

For more information on the plot tool visit Plotting For more information on scaling your model visit Scaling For more information on the inverse kinematics tool visit Inverse Kinematics For more information on the inverse dynamics tool visit Inverse Dynamics For more information on the static optimization tool visit Static Optimization For more information on the forward dynamics tool visit Forward Dynamics For more information on computing muscle control visit Computed Muscle Control For more information on the analyze tool visit Analyses For more information on plugins visit OpenSim User Plug-ins

OpenSim User Plug-ins

You can use the Tools menu to load in plugins. The plugin architecture allows you and other users to extend the OpenSim functionality. It is straightforward to use a plugin that you have written or has been shared with you (some existing plugins are available on http://simtk.org – search for opensim plugin):

1. Make sure the plugin has been built and tested on your platform. A plugin comes in the form of a dynamically loaded library (.dll on Windows platform, .dylib on MAC, .so on Linux).
2. Place the plugin under the plugins folder within your OpenSim installation folder (if you installed this in the default location on Windows, this will be C:\Program Files\OpenSim <version number>\plugins). You should then see the plugin as a menu option under the User Plugins menu.
3. From the User Plugins menu, click the name of the plugin to load it into OpenSim. You will be given the option to always preload the plugin each time OpenSim is launched. It is advised that you not do this until the plugin has been tested.
4. To remove the plugin from the menu or disable the loading of it by the GUI, remove the plugin file from the plugins folder.

While it is outside the scope of this guide to provide details about writing plugins and supported platforms, a separate document (the OpenSim Developer's Guide) has been provided on the OpenSim downloads page specifically for this purpose.

GUI Plugins

The GUI is made up of a set of modules as well and these can be individually enabled/disabled to customize the application. The details of this are outside the scope of this guide.

Window

The Window menu controls what windows are displayed:

	For more information on adding views visit Creating and Naming 3D Views For more information on the navigator window visit Navigator Window For more information on the coordinates window visit Coordinates Window For more information on the messages window visit Messages Window

Help

The Help menu includes the following options:

The About option opens a window giving more details about the software and includes acknowledgements and references. The Report Bug… and Request Feature… options will direct your default Internet browser to the Simtk.org website in order to report a bug or send a feature request to the OpenSim developers, respectively. Selecting a tutorial from the Tutorials list opens a PDF of an educational tutorial that introduces users to musculoskeletal modeling and simulation in OpenSim.