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This TechWatch is based on the second section of my "I didn't know you could do that in Altium Designer 6" presentation at our user conference on the 31st October 2006. This section covers hints tips and tricks within the Altium Designer Schematic Environment, following sections will include the PCB and Library environments.  Previous sections, Part 1 & 2 covered the Altium Designer Environment.

Each section is divided into parts, in Part 3 I will cover the hints and tips shown for Schematic Editing under the Design Capture Environment section.

The Design Capture Environment

Within the Altium Designer Schematic Environment we looked at hints and tips for Schematic Editing and Copying and Cloning Objects.  Under Schematic Editing we looked at wire manipulation, formatting and the compile mask.  With Copying and Cloning Objects we explored the many different ways of copying objects including the use of the Smart Paste, see Part 4.

Schematic Editing

Multiple wire end drag

In AD6 if you select multiple wires, which end at the same point, it is possible to drag just one of those wires and the rest will then extend to match. This can be particularly when wiring bus wires to pins.

Butting pins and use drag

When a component pin, port or power port is butted up to a pin of another component it makes an electrical connection. Using the command Edit » Move » Drag, or holding Ctrl when clicking and dragging, and moving either of the objects a wire is automatically placed between the objects.

Formatting Bar 

The Formatting tool bar, which by default can be found to the top right of your workspace within the menu bars, allows you to edit the graphical attributes of selected objects of the same type in the schematic editor. For example, if you select some wires it will allow you to change the colour and wire thickness, with text you can change colour, font and size and so on for any object type in a schematic. Below is an example of a Text Frame being select with the Formatting bar allowing easy editing of the frame colours and attributes at the same time as the text font and size.

Compile Mask

The compile mask allows you to hide areas of your schematic from the compilation process.  This means circuit covered by a compile mask are not included in error checking for transferred to PCB layout.  Compile masks can be placed from the Place » Directives » Compile Mask command, for more information there is a web demo available on Altiums site here Compile Mask.

Go to Part 4 or back to Part 1.