Allegro - Tip of the week: Creating a Command Shortcut with Scriptmode +e

Are you struggling to find the correct command while creating the funckeys?

The scriptmode command with correct options can help you identify the commands while you work on a layout, and then you can combine those commands to create a single funckey to achieve those steps.

For example, let us say you want to enter a drawing-level property to your board file. To do this, you need to go through the below process every time to open the Edit Property dialog box.

1. Go to the Edit > Properties
2. In the Find Filter’s “Find by Name” section, select “Drawing”.
3. Now, you select the desired property and value.

To assign all the above steps to a funckey such that pressing a single key will open the Edit Property dialog box to edit the drawing-level properties, follow the below steps:

1. Enter scriptmode +e in the Allegro command window and start performing the steps you want to put together as a single funckey. This option echoes the commands you enter, as shown below:

1. Copy all the above commands to a single line, separating them with semicolons.
2. To define a function key, put all commands within double quotes, as below:

              funckey e "property edit;setwindow form.find;FORM find name_type Drawing;FORM find find_by_name;setwindow form.findname;FORM findname objlist 'Drawing Select';FORM findname done"

3. The funckey ‘e’ can now be used directly to open the Edit Property dialog box for adding/modifying/deleting properties at the drawing level.

Team PCBTech

Cadence Design Systems