On 12:34 PM 2/07/2001 +0200, Joop Reekers said:
>Dennis Saputelli wrote:
>
>snip
> > it is possible to restore the old object specific commands such as Move
> > Component, Delete Track, Edit Pad by making macros
> >
>snip
>
>Yeah, Great idea!
>So I want to try to make macros, never done that in P99SE.
>I invoke Help (as the handbook suggests) and it says:
Two things here:
1) To make the object specific command available again you do not use a
macro but rather run a process and supply the desired parameters. What you
want is customisation. More on this later.
2) The language setting in the text editor seems to be flakey to me as
well. I have had to reinstall the text editor server to even get the
language option available and even then it didn't work. On investigation I
found that the Tools|Change Language menu item had *no* associated process
- so this menu command did nothing. On the bottom of the Browse Text tab
of the Design Explorer panel there is a button labelled Language Manager
and it worked for me. Using the customisation techniques I added the
TextEdit:SetupLanguage process (with no parameters) to the Process edit box
for the Tools|Change Language menu item. This fixed the language selection
issue.
Now onto the other matter. Many of the Protel PCB (and Sch) processes
allow you to pass in parameters to automate or restrict their behavior. In
the case of the PCB:MoveObject command you can pass in parameters such as:
Object = Component|Drag=True|$Description=Move or Drag components
which is a direct copy of the parameter list associated with the PCB
Edit|Move|Component menu item (also associated with the keyboard shortcut
M-C. There isn't a menu item for Move-String, for instance, when recent
version of Protel are installed. But from the on-line help for the
PCB:MoveObject process you can restrict the move command to the following
entities:
Arc, Component, Fill, Pad, Track, Via, String, Polygon, PolygonVertices,
Coordinate, Dimension, Reroute, Selection,TrackEnd
So by editing the PCB menu and/or a toolbar and/or a keyboard shortcut you
can roll-your-own restricted Move command. There is help on customising
the environment in the on-line help. And when you are browsing processes
(in the instructions that follow) you can click the info button to get help
on the allowed parameters for any particular process.
The following instructions add a Move-String to the Edit|Move cascaded menu
for PCB. Generalise and experiment to achieve your desired results.
***Backup you Client99SE.rcs file before making any changes. This file is
in your Windows or WinNT operating system install directory. Do this or
feel sorry for yourself at some stage in the future. Even with years of
experience in customising I still stuff up and have to go back to a backed
up rcs file.***
1) While editing a PCB file, click the Client menu (the down arrow to the
left of the File menu)
2) make sure the Menu tab is selected and the Current Menu shows PCBMenu
3) click the Menu button on the top right of the dialog and select the
Edit... function
4) double click on the Edit menu item shown in the Menu Properties dialog
5) scroll down until you find the Move sub-option and below that the
Component sub-sub-option
6) click on the Separator just below the Component entry and hit the Ins
key or right click and Add a new item
7) Change the text to Stri&ng (adding the & will make the 'n' the hot key
- 's' is already taken as a hot key for the move command).
8) Click on the Browse button to the right of the Process edit box
9) Make the "Show Processes for:" option show just PCB processes (you will
have to scroll down)
10) Now scroll in the process list to find PCB:MoveObject and double click it
11) Click the info button if you want information on the process
12) Add the following text or something similar to the Params edit box:
Object=String|$Description=Move strings
13) Add more menu items and changes if you wish
14) Click Close to get back to the Customize Resources dialog
15) Click Close again to return to the PCB editor
Now you can either type E-M-N or just M-N to move strings or use the
Edit|Move|Strings menu item - you will only be able to move strings when
this command is active. This is very useful when manipulating designators
at the end of a layout.
The customisation I like most is adding Copy and Paste to the
Right-Click. To do this just follow the instructions to step 3) but then
double click on the Help top level menu item, scroll down to the
Right-Click sub-sub-option and add the PCB:Copy and PCB:Paste in your
desired position (I add them at the top of the right click list and then
add a separator below them - you can drag the entries about to re-position
them). If you want to get really clever you can add a Paste Special to the
right click by making a further PCB:Paste menu item but adding suitable
parameters (see the info) - left as an exercise by the interested reader.
Adding Copy and Paste to the right click works in Sch as well - but the
processes are now Sch:Copy and Sch:Paste.
After you have tested your new configuration save the Client99se.rcs and
add it to your automatic backup list (you do have a backup procedure don't
you?).
All the best,
Ian Wilson
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