Altium Designer Home Page
Contents
The Home page within Altium Designer provides a 'central hub' from which to access many common tasks and support resources. The page is designed to present relevant information in a clear, concise and powerful way – giving you streamlined access to routinely used areas of the software, such as the My Account page and design-based tasks, as well as offering additional information and resources when you are signed in to your Altium account.
Access the Home page using the View»Home command (shortcut: V, H), or by clicking the 
button on the Navigation toolbar.
Example content on Altium Designer's Home page.
The following sections detail the various regions of the page. Where content and/or interaction with content requires you to be signed in to your Altium account, indication of this is given.
Page Banner
This region, at the top of the page, is used to reflect whether or not you are currently signed in to your Altium account, through the secure Altium portal. If you are not currently signed in, the text in the banner will read Not signed in. If you sign-in to your account, this text will change to Signing in and then finally YourName is signed in.
Provided you are signed in to your account, when you select and use a license (On-Demand, Standalone, or Private Server), indication that you are using that license will be reflected in the banner.
When signed in and licensed, the Home Page will even tell you what license you're using!
Live Web View (Requires Sign-In)
This region of the page provides a 'portal' into Altium web-based content. The information is presented only when you are signed in to your Altium account. What's more, the content in the view is dynamic, with relevant information on design issues and solutions, features and late-breaking design news and videos, changing over time – truly a case of "watch this space"!
Sign-in to access live web-based resources.
If you are not currently signed in to your Altium account, this region of the page will simply provide a notice to that effect, and a message guiding you to sign in to be able to access the full complement of Altium Designer's support resources.
My Account Pane
This area of the page provides controls for signing into (or out of) your Altium account. Click on the Account Preferences option to quickly access the System – Account Management page of the Preferences dialog, from where you can specify your sign-in details (at the system level) and also which Altium Account Management Server (Altium portal) you connect to.
If you have forgotten your password, simply click the Forgotten Password? option to access the Reset Password dialog. Simply enter your user name (your account email address) and click the Reset Password button. A temporary password will be created and mailed to that email address. Use this to sign in – you will be prompted to create a new password at that time.
Click on the more... link in the bottom-right corner to quickly access the My Account page, from where you can perform detailed management of your Altium Designer licensing.
The My Account pane provides controls to quickly access your account and related licensing.
Software Updates Pane (Requires Sign-In)
This area of the page presents a summary of the current version of Altium Designer installed on your machine. If you are signed in, you will be told whether your system is up-to-date. If there are software updates, these will be listed for you.
The source used for checking for available updates – updates available on the web, or updates available on a local network – and the frequency of checking, is in accordance with settings on the System – Altium Web Update page of the Preferences dialog. Click on the Altium Web Update Preferences option to quickly access this page.
Click on the more... link in the bottom-right corner to quickly access the Altium Web Update page.
The Software Updates pane tells you instantly if your system is up-to-date or not.
If you are not currently signed in to your account, update information will not be available to you. Clicking on the more... link will simply bring up the Account Sign in dialog.
Tasks Pane
This region of the page provides various task-based links. Use the links provided to quickly access controls to perform common tasks, or to access features directly.
Many of these links are to pre-defined navigation support pages. Tasks associated with a particular design area, for example, will take you to pages offering common tasks such as creation of a new project or document, and also featuring key reference documentation for that design area. Other links provide immediate access to resources, such as the Altium Wiki, or the Devices view.
Use links in the Tasks pane to quickly access, for example, pages with common tasks and key documentation.
Recent Items Pane
This region of the page allows you to quickly access documents, projects, or workspaces, that you have recently opened. Simply double-click on an entry to open the corresponding item. Clicking on a document will open that document as the active document in the main design window.
Click on the more... link in the bottom-right corner to quickly access the Recent Documents, Projects and Workspaces dialog, from where you can open multiple items at the same time.
Open a recent document, project, or workpsace in a double-click! Alternatively, access a dialog to perform batch-like opening of multiple items.
Users Pane (Requires Sign-In)
For an On-Demand license this region of the page will, provided you are signed in to your account, list all people that are using that license. If you are using a single-seat On-Demand license, only your name will appear.
See 'at-a-glance' other users of the same multi-
seat On-Demand license.
Altium Labs Pane (Requires Sign-In)
Main article: Altium Labs
This region of the page lists any features of the software that are currently part of the Altium Labs. These are features that have not been deemed ready for release. They are provided as a 'sneak preview' of what is coming on the horizon to Altium Designer.
You can 'activate' the functionality of an Altium Labs feature within your current installation of Altium Designer – simply enable the check box next to the feature's entry in the list. All commands, dialogs and controls associated with the feature will be made 'live' for you to use. To 'deactivate' a feature, just uncheck its check box.
Although the list of features will still be shown if you are not signed in to your account, activation and deactivation of features in the Altium Labs is only possible provided you are signed in.
Enter the developer's laboratory! With Altium Labs,
you can enable and test-drive as-yet-unreleased
Altium Designer features.
Have a play and remember – although these features are not officially ready for use, all feedback gained through user-experiences will help to make these great 'future features' even greater, come actual release time!