BEAM link (optional)

Glyph can exchange a design directly with a BeamXplorer maskless-lithography machine on the same computer — no filesystem hop, no USB stick. The link is off by default: BeamXplorer must have externalInterface enabled in its settings, and you connect from Glyph with an explicit click.

• The BEAM pill at the right end of the menu bar shows the link's status (disconnected / connecting / connected / error) and, once connected, a live machine-state line (position, door, exposing).
• File → Open from BEAM… pulls the design currently loaded on the machine into a new tab, so you can inspect or edit it without touching the local filesystem.
• File → Send to BEAM… exports the active document as GDS, uploads it, and loads it on the machine — the design is automatically loaded and sliced, ready to print. Glyph never starts exposure — that's always the operator's deliberate act at the tool.
• Construction shapes, pinned dimensions, and bitmaps are excluded from the design sent to BEAM, same as any other GDS export (§15).
• All traffic stays on 127.0.0.1; nothing is sent to the internet — see the Privacy note in §15.