What's Good About Object Visibility Layers in DEHDL? The Secret's in the 16.5 Release!

In the 16.5 Design Entry HDL (DEHDL) release, Object Visibility Layers are introduced. The different objects in DEHDL are now available on different layers and you are provided a toolbar for which the visibility of each of object layer can be controlled. This is similar to displaying layers of objects in Allegro PCB Editor.

Read on for more details …

The different DEHDL object types available are:

1. Components/Symbols
2. Nets
3. Properties
4. Notes
5. Images

The visibility of each object layer can be controlled by pressing or de-pressing the toolbar buttons. Pressing any object layer button makes that object invisible and de-pressing, shows the objects of that layer.

On a schematic sheet, by default all the objects are visible and the toolbar looks like:

 

With this default setting, all the objects are visible on the schematic sheet:

 

By pressing any of the buttons, for example Nets, then all the nets are made invisible on the schematic canvas:

 

 

You can use the visibility toolbar to select objects of the same type to perform common operations. As an example, in the case of very dense schematics, this feature can be used to hide all the properties to make the connectivity of the design more clear.
 
The following steps explain the procedure of selecting objects:
 
1. Draw a selection box and everything inside gets selected.
2. Press all the visibility layer buttons one by one and see the objects of the particular layer disappear from the schematic canvas.
3. Press only the Symbols button and make all the symbols visible.
4. Select the menu option Group> Create> By Rectangle.
5. Draw a selection box and the symbols in the selection box become part of the group.
6. Select the menu option Group> Add Property…
7. Specify a property value pair: FOO = BAR
8. This property gets added to all the symbols which were members of the group.

Please share your experience using this new capability.

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia