Your FreeSewing Account
Your FreeSewing account is where we store your data. Your account itself can hold the following fields:
- About you:
- Preferences:
- Internal:
In addition, any bookmarks, measurements sets, patterns, and API keys are strictly speaking also part of your account data but they are stored as individual records, rather than as fields in your account.
About you
These fields tell a little bit about yourself and – with the exception of your email address – are visible to other FreeSewing users when they visit your profile.
Username
Your username is special name that uniquely identifies you.
You can choose your own username, so anything goes.
To avoid confusion, usernames must be unique when lowercased. In other words,
the username Joost will not be available if a user joost exists.
Email Address
Your email address ensures we can reach you when it’s needed. For example when you have forgotten your password.
Bio
Your account bio is the place where you can tell a little bit about yourself.
Other FreeSewing users can see your bio, so this is a way to find like-minded people or promote your own content.
This field supports Markdown, so you can add links and even images.
Profile Image
You can choose a profile image to further personalize your account.
It can be a picture of you, your cat, your favourite cartoon character. You do you.
Social media platforms
You can set your username/identity on other social media platforms in your FreeSewing account.
We do not use this data in any way. This is only here so FreeSewing users can connect the dots across platforms.
GitHub identity
If you add your GitHub username and GitHub email address to your account, we will use them when interacting with GitHub on your behalf.
Note that both your GitHub username and email is public info. This merely allows us to make a link between your FreeSewing account and GitHub account.
For example, when you report a problem on this website, we can mention you so you will receive notifications when there is an update. For this, your username is sufficient.
When you submit a showcase post or make changed to our content, we can credit those commits to you if we have both your username and the email address you use on GitHub.
If all of this in confusing, you don’t have to provide this info. It’s an advanced feature.
Preferences
These fields register your preferences for using the site.
Units
FreeSewing support both metric units (cm) and imperial units (inch).
Here you can choose which type of units you prefer.
Note that you can override these default units in various places, such as on a specific pattern or measurements set.
Measurements Sets Comparison
We can occasionally show how your sets of measurements compare to other measurements sets. This allows us to detect potential problems in your measurements or patterns.
Comparing yourself to others is the fastest way to be unhappy, so if you’d rather not see any comparisons, you can disable this feature altogether.
User Experience
This setting allows you to control what sort of a user experience you want. One that is more simple, with advanced features hidden. Or one that has all bells and whistles.
FreeSewing is a rather advanced platform, and that can be intimidating for new users. This setting was created to allow people to start simple, and then unlock more features later.
Levels and Features
Each User Experience level adds additional features and settings to the ones provided by the levels below it.
Show details of what features are available at the various levels
| Level | Pattern Drafting UI | Account Settings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Settings: Units Views: Pattern Editor, Pattern Measurements, Print Layout, Save Pattern As, Export Pattern, Documentation | Data: Patterns, Measurement Sets Settings: User Experience Patterns: Name, Image Measurement Sets: Name, Image, Units |
| 2 | Settings: Seam Allowance, Paperless UI: Kiosk Mode Views: Pattern Logs | Data: Bookmarks Info: Username, Bio, Img Settings: Language, Units, Newsletter Subscription, Consent & Privacy Security: Password Patterns: Notes, Created, Updated Measurement Sets: Notes, Created, Updated |
| 3 | Settings: Language Views: Test Design, Time Design | Info: Email Address Settings: Metricset Comparison Security: Two-Factor Authentication Social: GitHub, Instagram, Mastodon, Reddit, Twitch, TikTok, Website Patterns: Public Measurement Sets: Public |
4 | Settings: Details, Expand, Included Parts, Scale, Margin UI: Render Engine Views: Edit Settings by Hand, Pattern Inspector | Data: API Keys Security: API Keys Patterns: ID Measurement Sets: ID |
5 | (“Are you sure?” confirmation guardrails removed.) | (“Are you sure?” confirmation guardrails removed.) |
Newsletter
This allows you to subscribe to the FreeSewing newsletter. Or not.
Password
Your password guards your account so that only you can access it.
We do not enforce a password policy, but recommend you enable Two-Factor Authentication.
Internal
These fields are required for the site to function. You cannot change them.
User ID
Every FreeSewing user has a user ID, sometimes referred to as UID or just
ID. It is a number that uniquely identifies one particular user.
You can find it on your account page under info. Or navigate to /id and – if you are logged in – you will see your ID there.
Make sure to always mention your ID when [contacting support]https://freesewing.org(/support).
Role
Every FreeSewing user has a role that determines their privileges on the site.
You can see your role on your account page under info. Or navigate to [/id]https://freesewing.org(/id) and – if you are logged in – you will see your role there.
The following roles exist:
- user
- bughunter
- support
- admin
User
More that 99.99% of FreeSewing users have the user role. It is the default role, and it is exceedingly rare to have a user that has a different role.
Bughunter
The bughunter role grants you permission to read measurments and patterns data from other users.
It is a role that is reserved for people in the community who want to help other users troubleshoot their patterns.
Support
The support role grants you permission to read all account data from other users.
It is a role reserved for contributors who hunt down bugs reported by users.
Admin
The admin role grants you all permissions, including changing the roles of other users.
Only [joost]https://freesewing.org(/users/user?id=1) holds the admin role.