Electric has the concept of a current technology which is shown in the status bar. This technology affects many things, including the selection of nodes and arcs in the component menu. There are a number of ways to affect the current technology, both manual and automatic.

You can change the current technology by selecting it from the popup at the top of the side bar (either the "Components" or "Layers" tab). Electric automatically switches the current technology to match the cell being edited. If there are multiple cells being edited from different technologies, this switching can become annoying. To disable automatic technology switching, use the "New Nodes" preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "General" section, "New Nodes" tab), and uncheck "Switch technology to match current cell".

To see a list of primitive nodes and arcs in the current technology, use the Describe this Technology command (in menu Edit / Technology Specific). To see a detailled description of the current technology, use the Document Current Technology command.

The "Technology" preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "Technology" section, "Technology" tab) lets you control many general and specific technology settings.

You can change the default technology with the popup in the upper-left of this dialog. This default technology is the used when Electric first begins. It is also used when reading old libraries that are missing some technology information.

Besides remembering a startup technology, Electric also remembers a default "layout" technology. This is a technology with real geometry (an integrated circuit technology, not a schematics or artwork technology) The default layout technology is used to give further information about schematics components . It is listed in the "Schematics" section under "Use scale values from this technology".

Some technologies have settable options that further customize them. The "Technology" preferences dialog lets you control these options. More information about this dialog is available from the individual technology sections on MOSIS CMOS (Section 7-4-2), Schematics (Section 7-5-1 and Section 3-11-2), and Artwork (Section 7-6-1).