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Things You Didn't Know About Virtuoso: RMB, OMG! ;-)

By Stacy Whiteman on June 23, 2009Comments(0)Filed under: Custom IC Design, Virtuoso, Virtuoso IC 6.1.3, IC 6.1

I apologize for the Internet slang in the title (urbandictionary calls OMG "the most irritating piece of chatroom vernacular in existence"), but I couldn't resist.  Ever since IC6.1 came out, it seems like every other question gets answered using the three-letter acronym (that's TLA for those in the know), RMB.  RMB to open an assistant, RMB to do this, RMB to do that.  If you can't find it anywhere else, look under your RMB (oh sorry, it means Right Mouse Button).

Well, the other day as I was doing just that, I saw some commands on the RMB that I had never realized were there.  I started looking around and realized that, hey, they've added a bunch of stuff on the right mouse button that's pretty handy. 

So here's a quick list of a few things you might want to try with your RMB.  I realize that most of these functions already have bindkeys, but heck, sometimes I don't want to have to put down that sandwich I'm holding in my left hand in order to press the "e" key...

  • In a schematic with nothing selected
    • View Fit
    • Add Instance
    • Add Pin
    • Add Wire
    • Return (if you have descended in the hierarchy)
  • In a schematic with a wire selected
    • Delete
    • Add Wire Name
    • Add Probe
  • In a schematic with an instance selected
    • Copy
    • Delete
    • Rotate
    • Descend Read
    • Descend Edit (cool, no more Shift-E--actually, did you know that now if you double-click on an instance, it does a Descend Edit too?)
  • Similar functionality is available in layout as well
  • All the new IC 6.1 assistants (Navigator, Property Editor, etc.) have context-sensitive RMB menus to do the most commonly-used command

rmb

 

Bonus Tip: If you have a mouse with a wheel, scrolling the wheel up and down will pan the schematic (or layout) up and down, holding Shift and "wheeling" will pan left and right and holding Ctrl and "wheeling" will zoom in and out.  For those of you so inclined, the bindkey designations for wheel scrolling are Btn4Down and Btn5Down and can be programmed just like any other bindkeys.

Well, now you can do a huge heap of your daily editing tasks using only one hand.  How great is that?  Stay tuned to this space for more Virtuoso tips and as always, feel free to share any tricks of your own or comment on what you like, don't like or would like to see in Virtuoso.

 

Stacey Whiteman

 

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