Silhouette Studio Web Material Guide Overlay

WHAT IT DOES

Silhouette Studio Web Material Guide Overlay automatically scans Silhouette product pages and craft material listings to extract comprehensive material specifications including material type, thickness, color options, recommended blade settings, cutting speed, and pressure settings. The tool displays a floating overlay panel directly on the product page that shows the complete material guide with recommended machine settings for your specific Silhouette machine. A quick-reference section provides cutting recommendations for popular material types including vinyl, cardstock, fabric, HTV, leather, and wood. You can save custom notes and preferences for each material type you view, and the tool remembers your machine model preferences across sessions. This eliminates the need to search through product descriptions or external reference charts to find the right settings for your material, saving time and reducing cutting errors.

WHERE IT RUNS

This extension operates exclusively on silhouetteamerica.com domain pages, specifically on product pages, material listings, and shop pages. It works alongside the free BotGentz companion extension, which provides the necessary DOM access and page interaction capabilities. The material guide overlay runs entirely within your local browser instance and does not communicate with any external servers or APIs. All material extraction, settings recommendations, and note storage occurs on your machine, ensuring your material preferences and browsing activity remain private. It supports all modern Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera) and Firefox when paired with the BotGentz bridge.

HOW TO USE

After installing both BotGentz and this material guide overlay, simply navigate to any Silhouette product or material page. Within 1-2 seconds, a panel appears in the bottom-right corner displaying the material name, type, thickness, and available colors. The "Recommended Settings" section shows the suggested blade number, speed, pressure, and pass count for your material, with color-coded values for easy reference. Use the machine selector dropdown to switch between Cameo, Portrait, and Curio—settings adjust automatically based on your machine. Toggle between imperial and metric units to match your preference. The "Your Notes" section provides a text area where you can save custom notes, preferred settings variations, or project-specific details for each material. The quick-reference section shows baseline settings for common materials, helping you compare and adjust as needed. All settings and notes are saved automatically and persist across sessions.

MATERIAL SPECIFICATION EXTRACTION

The material guide overlay uses a multi-strategy extraction system to locate and parse material specifications from Silhouette product pages. It first attempts to find structured specification data using selectors based on Silhouette's typical product page layout, including product attributes, specifications sections, and material details. The tool extracts material type through keyword detection in page text, identifying terms like "vinyl," "cardstock," "fabric," "leather," "wood," "acrylic," "HTV," and more. Thickness is extracted using pattern matching for measurements in millimeters, mils, inches, or centimeters. Color information is extracted by scanning for common color names and deduplicating the results. For blade, speed, and pressure settings, the tool combines any extracted page data with a fallback database of recommended settings based on material type. This database-driven approach ensures users receive useful recommendations even when specific settings are not explicitly listed on the product page. The pass count is determined by extracting any mentioned value or applying default values for harder materials that require multiple passes.

THE PANEL

The material guide overlay panel is a compact, functional overlay that integrates into the Silhouette product page. It can be dragged by clicking and holding the title bar, positioning the panel anywhere on the screen for optimal visibility while you browse materials. The panel includes a built-in snap feature that automatically aligns to the nearest screen edge when released within 48 pixels, keeping your workspace organized. Click the collapse arrow in the top-right corner to minimize the panel to a small icon bubble showing a gear emoji, preserving screen space while keeping the tool accessible. The panel is not resizable in this version, maintaining a consistent compact size that works on all screen resolutions. Press the Escape key to instantly hide the panel; press Escape again to restore it. All position, collapse state, selected machine model, preferred units, material notes, and settings are saved locally using GM_setValue and persist across browsing sessions.

PLEASE NOTE

This extension requires the free BotGentz extension to function—the material guide overlay does not work standalone. Silhouette occasionally updates its product page layouts, which may temporarily affect material specification extraction accuracy. The tool extracts material data from the visible page content; if a product page uses a non-standard format, some specifications may not be available. Settings recommendations are based on general guidelines and may need adjustment based on your specific machine, blade condition, and material batch. Always test cutting settings on scrap material before cutting your final project. The tool does not store or transmit any data; all material notes, settings preferences, and machine selections are saved entirely within your browser. This tool is designed for personal shopping and crafting assistance and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Silhouette America or its parent company. Blade, speed, and pressure settings are recommendations only—always consult your machine's manual and perform test cuts.