Signal Harness

Parent page: Sch Dialogs

The Signal Harness dialog.

Summary

This dialog allows the designer to specify the properties of a Signal Harness object. A Signal Harness is an electrical design primitive. It is an abstract connection that enables the logical grouping of different signals including buses, wires and other signal harnesses, for increased flexibility and streamlined design. Signal Harnesses allow for the creation and manipulation of higher level abstract connections between subcircuits in your PCB Projects. They allow for a more complex design within the same schematic workspace, thereby increasing readability of designs and building potential for re-use.

Access

The Signal Harness dialog can be accessed during placement by pressing the Tab key.

After placement, the dialog can be accessed in one of the following ways:

• Double-clicking on the placed signal harness object.
• Placing the cursor over the signal harness object, right-clicking and choosing Properties from the context menu.

Graphical Tab

Signal Harness dialog - Graphical tab.

Use the dialog's Graphical tab to modify graphical properties of the signal harness object.

Options/Controls

• Width - the width of the signal harness line. Available widths are: Smallest, Small, Medium, and Large.
• Color - click the color sample to change the color of the signal harness, using the standard Choose Color dialog.
• Locked - enable this option to protect the signal harness from being edited graphically.

Vertices Tab

Signal Harness dialog - Vertices tab.

Use the dialog's Vertices tab to edit the individual vertices of the currently selected signal harness object. You can also add new vertices to the signal harness, or remove selected vertices altogether.

Options/Controls

• Vertices Grid - the main region of the tab lists all of the vertex points currently defined for the signal harness, in terms of:
  • Index - the assigned index of the vertex.
  • X - the X (horizontal) coordinate for the vertex.
  • Y - the Y (vertical) coordinate for the vertex.
• Add - click this button to add a new vertex point. The new vertex will be added below the currently focused vertex entry (as distinguished by a dotted outline around a cell in its row) and will initially have the same coordinates as the focused entry
• Remove - click this button to remove the currently selected vertex entries in the list. This command will be unavailable if there are only two vertices present for the signal harness.
• Menu - click this button to access a pop-up menu containing the following commands:
  • Edit - right-click on a coordinate cell (X or Y) for a vertex and use this command to edit the value in that cell. Alternatively, click directly on the cell.
  • Add - use this command to add a new vertex point. The new vertex will be added below the currently focused vertex entry (as distinguished by a dotted outline around a cell in its row) and will initially have the same coordinates as the focused entry.
  • Remove - use this command to remove the currently selected vertex entries in the list. This command will be unavailable if there are only two vertices present for the signal harness.
  • Copy - use this command to copy the content of the selected cells in the list to the clipboard (alternatively use Ctrl+C).
  • Paste - use this command to paste the content of the clipboard into the list, starting at the selected cell (alternatively use Ctrl+V).
  • Select All - use this command to quickly select the entire grid contents of the list.
  • Select Column - use this command to quickly select the entire column in which the currently focused cell resides.
  • Move Up - use this command to move the selected vertex upward in the list.
  • Move Down - use this command to move the selected vertex downward in the list.
  • Move Signal Harness By XY - use this command to move the entire signal harness object. The Move Signal Harness By dialog will appear, from where you can enter the increment value to be applied to each vertex point's X and Y coordinates.