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1. Note To revert the zoom direction you need to set the environment variable VISUAL_WHEEL_ZOOM_DIRECTION to 1 Zooming Out You can zoom out a particular area or from a particular point in a design e To zoom out shrinking your graphics Choose View gt Zoom or click the Zoom icon GE or Click and drag from the top corner to the diagonally opposite bottom corner of the area into which you need to shrink your currently visible graphics Your graphics shrink to fit the area you defined and the rest of your window is filled by any adjoining portions of the diagram see Figure 4 3 Figure 4 3 Shrinking Graphics Mouse DOWN B e _ Keep the mouse button down as you move from an upper corner diagonally to a lower corner to shrink into the area you enclosed e To zoom out from a particular point in the design Click the Zoom Out icon fh or Click the point The default zoom out factor is defined in the Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General pane To set the default factor enter a value for the Zoom factor option Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 85 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows _ Note A Clicking the Zoom Out or Zoom In icon places the editing window in zoom mode When you use either or the second methods of zooming the current value of the Enable multi zoom option also located in the Global Settings gt
2. 1 Select the element or elements that you need to copy 2 Click the Copy icon Ea or choose Edit gt Copy Alternatively you can right click and choose Copy from the popup menu 3 To copy into another diagram make that diagram window active You cannot copy into a diagram that belongs to another editor For example you cannot copy from a block diagram into a state diagram 4 Click the Paste icon A or choose Edit gt Paste Alternatively you can right click and choose Paste from the popup menu The copy retrieved from the clipboard moves with your pointer 5 Move the copy into position and click to drop it Or to delete the copy right click or press Delete on the keyboard 6 To place another copy of the same element s return to step 4 Your clipboard retains its content until you use the Copy command again or exit Visual Elite It is separate from the text editing clipboard To move duplicated elements after dropping them move them like any other elements see Moving Graphic Elements on page 107 Duplicating Graphic Elements Instead of just copying and pasting a graphic element a number of times the Array command provides a quicker way to duplicate a graphic element several times 1 Select the element 108 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements 2 Choose Edit gt Array or right click and choose Array from the popup menu 3 Inthe Array dialog bo
3. Attach Comment Attach Synthesis Command Push Toggle Display Block Contents Block To Component Update Top Down In the graphic and Symbol editors the popup menu is displayed when the editor is in Select mode the Select icon is active and you click the right mouse button When the mouse pointer is positioned on a selected graphic element the menu includes commands that are pertinent to the selected element If more than one element is selected the menu includes only those commands that are pertinent to all these elements When the mouse pointer is positioned on empty space the menu includes commands that are pertinent to the unit as a whole In the Browser a popup menu that displays the appropriate commands is always available Manipulating Windows While several Visual Elite windows can be open simultaneously at any given time only one window is active e On Linux stations the active window is distinguished by its highlighted border e In Windows the active window is distinguished by its blue banner The following sections discuss e Bringing a Window to the Front e Adjusting Magnification 82 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows e Using the Panorama View e Scrolling and Panning e Redrawing the Active Window e Making the Grid Visible e Minimizing and Restoring Windows Reducing the Number of Windows Displayed e Closing Window
4. Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 47 November 2013 Setup and Invocation The Initialization File Initialization File Configurability You maintain different working environments by using different initialization files To use the same environment as someone else either reference the same initialization file or for greater flexibility copy the same initialization file to the directory from which you invoke Visual Elite Initialization File Implementation When Visual Elite is invoked an initialization file is read to implement a given working environment The initialization file read is the first existing file in the following list e An initialization file specified on the command line using the ini option for example visual_elite ini newlibs ini e A file named visualhl ini in the directory referenced by the VISUALHDL environment variable e A file named visualhl ini in the directory from which you invoke Visual Elite your working directory If none of the above initialization files is available the Visual Elite tool creates a new initialization file in the directory from which you invoked the program Guidelines for Creating an Initialization File In general any initialization file you use should start as a copy of the original visualhl ini file that was installed with the Visual Elite software so that it points to the standard libraries which are automatically downloaded during installation If you move any of these
5. _ Note _____________ Compiling a unit with the VISUAL_DATA_BASE_CHECK environment variable set to 1 is slower than normal compilation To fix the line number inconsistency permanently 1 Double click on the message Need to sort Signals Declaration The Local Signals dialog opens 2 On the first signal toggle the bounds arrow up then down 3 Save the changes VISUAL_ENABLE_SYSTEMC_EXCEPTIONS Setting this variable to any value prints any exceptions encountered during elaboration of a SystemC design to the Simulation Control window Note however that you cannot trace these messages back to the cause of the problem But you can trace the source of the problem using the Simulation Control window command line VISUAL_EXTERN_BITMAPS This environment variable can be used to specify a directory in which external bitmaps are stored The bitmaps can then be integrated in block diagram state diagram and flowchart units For more details see Inserting External Bitmaps in Graphical Units on page 110 VISUAL_GRAPHIC_RO With this variable set to any value an alert is issued upon performing an action on a read only graphical unit and the action is undone 60 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUAL_HDL_CCOMPILER Windows only This environment variable enables you to specify your ANSI C compiler of choice for performing optimized compi
6. To trace the cause of any displayed message double click the empty bar to the left of the message or place the cursor anywhere within the message and press Enter Console Window The message pane of the main window resembles a Linux console window and you be used to Visual Elite enter commands such as clear getenv help open or putenv To display the list of available commands press Tab To display help about all available commands type the word helpvis at the prompt To copy text from the message pane select the text and click Ctrl C To paste text into the message pane place the cursor at the insertion point and click Ctrl V To select an entire line of text click the empty bar to the left of the appropriate line not on the line itself To modify font size or clear the pane right click when the pointer is within the pane then choose the appropriate command from the popup menu displayed To navigate through the history of commands that you have entered e In Windows use the Ctrl Up Arrow or Ctrl Down Arrow e In Linux use the Meta Up Arrow or Meta Down Arrow 80 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Options Manager Options Manager The Options Manager enables you to configure global system settings as well as defaults for design related issues when working in Visual Elite Some of the settings can be overridden locally In the various panels of the Options Manager
7. e Hide instance shortcuts When the Design Centered Browser View is displayed in the Browser a shortcut icon is displayed in the branch link between an instance of a unit and the higher level unit that instantiates it Select this option to hide this shortcut icon Note __ Selecting either option does not implement the option in any already opened Browser window but only in any Browser window you subsequently open To open a unit from the Browser double click its icon The unit is displayed in the appropriate Visual Elite editor Name Display in the Browser In the Browser design units are sorted by type Within each type units are ordered alphabetically with uppercase letters listed before lowercase letters To order units by type name language or time choose View gt Sort By or right click then choose Sort By and the appropriate option When you sort by name or type subdesign units always appear directly after their units regardless of their names You cannot store two units having the same name in the same library except for subdesign units belonging to different units since they are entirely local to the unit that instantiates them 134 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment You cannot instantiate two different units having the same name in a design even if the units are stored in different libraries You can nevertheles
8. Deselecting All Selected Elements To deselect all elements you have previously selected perform one of the following actions without pressing Shift Select a new element e Click in an empty area of the diagram Defining Attributes for Graphic Elements All of the graphic elements used in the various editors have definable attributes for example the conditions governing a state transition or the contents of a block The following sections describe how to define the attributes of individual or multiple elements Defining Attributes of Individual Elements To define or modify these attributes use the appropriate dialog box 1 Click the Select icon i 2 Click the element 3 Click the Attributes icon 8 Alternatively you can press F3 click Attributes gt Element or right click and choose Attributes in the popup menu 4 In the Attributes dialog box define the required attributes For details see the individual editor chapters 5 After defining the required attributes click Apply the dialog box remains open or OK the dialog box closes to save the attributes Click Cancel to close the dialog box without saving the changed attributes Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 105 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Defining Attributes of Multiple Elements To page through and define the attributes of multiple elements in a diagram 1 Select all the elements whose attributes you n
9. In addition numerous shortcut key operations are available with the Visual Elite internal text editor For details see Keyboard Commands 1 on page 270 t Online Help and Tool Tips The Visual Elite tool includes online Help to assist you as you work e To display the top of the Help tree choose Help gt Help Topics Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 99 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Online Help and Tool Tips e To display Help specific to any dialog box click Help in the dialog box e To display Help specific to a menu command highlight the command using your mouse and press F1 e To display Help specific to a window such as an editing window press F1 while your mouse pointer is positioned in that window Tool tips display the names of the Visual Elite icons To see the name of any command icon rest your mouse pointer on it for a moment Similarly a tool tip is displayed whenever the mouse pointer rests on a graphic element within an editing window the element type and name are displayed 100 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Chapter 5 Common Editor Options This section describes operations that are common to the Visual Elite editors the Block Diagram State Diagram Flowchart and Truth Table graphical editors as well as where relevant the Visual Elite textual editors The following sections describe e Creating a New Unit e Graphic Elements e Text in Graphic Units e Und
10. any value or no value at all null string to use the sym1 symbol as the default symbol for the macro components VISUAL NO DISPLAY SUBNET NAME By default for nets that have subnets the Visual Elite application displays the subnet using the subnet name and bus width the subnet name is the same as the net For example for net data 7 0 Visual Elite might display a subnet as data 7 4 Set this environment variable to any value or no value at all null string to disable the display of the subnet name The subnet would then be displayed as 7 4 VISUAL _OLD_ VECTOR COMP ASSOC GEN By default when using downto ways for the vector bounds the generated code for the port map association of the vector components in Visual Elite now connects the instances in the descending order first instance CO to the last 17bits of the vector and so on until the last instance is connected to the lower 17bits For example CO rx_data 67 C1 rx_data 50 C2 rx_data 33 17 C3 rx_data 16 Using this environment variable enables you to generate code that connects the instances in ascending order CO connected to the lower bits and so on until the last instance is connected to the upper bits of the vector For example CO rd_data 16 0 C1 rx_data 33 17 C2 rx_data 50 34 C3 rx_data 67 51 VISUAL_POSTSCR_IGN_PAGEDEVICE This environment variable enables creating a PostScript file which does not include the pagedevice details 64 Vis
11. enter the number of the higher numbered page For example to insert a page between pages 2 and 3 enter the value 3 The page that was previously numbered 3 becomes page 4 and all other higher numbered pages are incremented by 1 You cannot insert a page before page 1 of a unit nor can you assign a page a number higher than the resulting total number of pages in the unit Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 121 November 2013 Common Editor Options Pages When a unit has more than one page the number of the page displays next to the unit name in the window banner for this page Page numbers are created and maintained automatically as necessary The number changes automatically if lower numbered pages are deleted The Previous and Next page commands move you from page to page according to numeric order In the editor window the Save and Close commands apply only to the individual page displayed You cannot drag elements from one page to another To copy or move elements from one page to another use the clipboard as if you were copying or moving from unit to unit see Copying Graphic Elements on page 108 and Moving Graphic Elements on page 107 Accessing a Specific Page To open a specific page of a multi page unit use one of the following methods e Choose File gt Open in the editor window and select the appropriate page in the Unit list box e Double click the page icon in the Browser To open the first page you can
12. is the same version with which you are currently working If the external library was compiled using Incisive NC Sim check the ncls log file messages the file is located in the directory where you invoked Visual Elite 130 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment The Source displayed in the External Units dialog box is the path and name of the source file used to compile the external library If the Visual Elite tool generates a message that the source library does not exist which can occur if the source file was deleted by the simulator after compilation you must either reconstruct the source file in its originally defined location or reference a copy of the source file somewhere else on your system by editing the designated path To reconstruct the source file you can use the following commands cd source_directory cat vhd gt full_path_to_source_file Updating External Units Integrated in Existing Designs To update your designs when a new component library is released by your vendor choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Compiler Settings gt General and select the Update external units during compile tree option When this option is selected during a Compile Tree operation the Visual Elite tool checks whether the sources of any units stored in external libraries have been modified and if so recompiles the modified units Limitations The f
13. s Manual v4 5 139 November 2013 The Design Environment Units 1 Select a unit that is hierarchically above the units that you need to collapse The command applies to all complete sets of siblings below the selected unit that do not instantiate other visible units 2 Choose View gt Collapse gt Collapse One Level or click the Collapse One Level icon Bp To see one more level of instantiation under the currently selected unit choose View gt Expand gt Expand One Level or click the Expand One Level icon B You can also use the left and right arrow keys to move up and down the design hierarchy respectively To return to a libraries only view click the Libraries icon amp in the Browser toolbar Use the View gt Hide Tree and Show Tree menu items also available from the right click popup menu to control the visibility of the hierarchy or a particular branch of the hierarchy of a design without any influence of what for instance takes place higher up in the hierarchy For example if you have a branch that you always need hidden regardless of what happens to its parents and siblings you can select the icon for the top unit of this branch and choose the Hide Tree menu item Hiding a branch has no effect on its active participation in a design it is still compiled code is generated for it and more Projects Projects are specially designated hierarchies of units each of which commences with a particular topmost
14. see Setup and Invocation on page 47 To switch to a different working environment that is load a different initialization file anytime after invocation 1 choose File gt Load Environment 2 In the Load Environment dialog box enter the name of the initialization file you need to load The dialog box assumes that your initialization file has the ini filename extension Customizing Visual Elite The Visual Elite tool provides a sophisticated scheme based extension language called VEL Visual Elite Extension Language By writing scripts in VEL you can extend and customize Visual Elite functionality and automate large amounts of otherwise repetitive work VEL scripts can be used in two modes of work e Batch Batch mode scripts are written to perform complete operations in an off line mode Such operations deal with overall functionality Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 97 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Shortcut and Function Keys e Interactive Interactive mode scripts are written to automatically perform certain preliminary operations prior to working interactively with Visual Elite For complete details on how to write and run VEL scripts see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual You can also prepare and run scripts for Visual Elite written in either Perl or Tcl For more information see Using Perl and Tcl Scripts with Visual Elite on page 549 The Visual Elite tool enables
15. Choose Files gt Libraries 2 Inthe Libraries dialog box click the Visibility option to disable the display of the library in the Browser 3 To redisplay a currently hidden library click the Visibility option again a checkmark is displayed To open the Browser choose Tools gt Browse In the Browser each library is represented by its own icon The current library see The Current Library on page 132 is represented by a special flag icon as shown in Figure 6 1 Figure 6 1 Library Icons current library b gt amp other library The Current Library In Visual Elite the current library is the active library Any new units you create are stored in the current library When performing a search the Visual Elite tool initiates all searches to retrieve any needed information from the current library unless you explicitly specify a library to search from If the needed information is not in the current library the Visual Elite tool searches the remaining libraries in the order in which they are listed in the Libraries dialog box When you create a new library it automatically becomes the current library To change the current library select the library icon in the Browser or open the Libraries dialog box and select the required library then click the Current icon Fe As you develop a design you can refer to the current library for instance to instantiate a unit stored there in one of two ways e Explicitly by
16. Elite you can specify one or more of the following command line options e bdsa e c_entry 68 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite e cd or chdir e convert e deb Linux env e exceed Linux e 6 fpga e help Linux e ini e ip xact e lib or library e license e log e nodisplay noexit e sc scm e synchronicity e tcl e yds e ws or workspace bdsa The bdsa option is used to set the Block Diagram Stand Alone entry license as the default license when invoking Visual Elite instead of the HDL entry license You must have a Block Diagram Stand Alone entry license c_entry The c_entry option is used to set the C entry license as the default license when invoking Visual Elite instead of the HDL entry license You must have a C entry license cd or chdir The cd or chdir option can be used to define a new working directory for Visual Elite Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 69 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite convert The convert option is used to convert libraries created in the old database format version 4 2 and earlier to the current database format deb Linux The deb option is used to specify the name of a debugger to use when you utilize the Visual Elite Foreign C Interface capability Visual Elite on Linux version only The specifie
17. Graphic Units The following sections describe issues related to the use of text when working in the Visual Elite editors e Copying All Kinds of Text e Editing Text on Screen e Specifying Font Style for Text e Controlling Visibility of Graphic Element Text e Finding and Replacing Text in Design Units e Adding Free Text to a Diagram e Defining Unit Headers Entering Japanese Comments e Automatically Aligning Graphics and Text e Editing Textual Units Copying All Kinds of Text Anywhere you type text as free text textual units specifications in a dialog box or values in a truth table the same clipboard is shared Using the shared clipboard you can copy text from place to place in Visual Elite from a truth table into a textual unit from the action of a state transition to the action of a flowchart box or between any two boxes where text is editable You can copy as little as a signal name or up to dozens of lines of code One way to copy text is as follows 1 Ifitisn t already make the text available for editing for example if it is free text or a state diagram action or condition open its dialog box Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 111 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units 2 Drag the cursor to select the text to copy 3 Press Ctrl Insert to copy the text to the clipboard 4 Click where you need to re use the selected text 5 Press Shift Insert to paste the text from the clipboa
18. Since there can be any number of ways to manipulate the same data between input and output an entity can have any number of architectures each handling the same inputs processing them differently and sending values to the same outputs An additional secondary unit which you can create is a configuration The configuration unit defines the implementation of a specific architecture with an entity You can instantiate any VHDL entity and architecture pair stored in a Visual Elite library in a design just as you instantiate graphical design units Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 137 November 2013 The Design Environment Units Another type of VHDL primary unit you can create is a VHDL package While packages are stored in libraries strictly speaking a package is not considered a Visual Elite design unit because it does not have a place of its own in a design hierarchy A package does not process inputs or produce outputs nor can it be simulated In VHDL a package is a collection of declarations that you might otherwise need to repeat inside several different units For better efficiency these declarations are made in a single package that you can specify be used by one or more design units For a design unit using a package is as good as containing its contents See more about packages in Packages on page 571 A package can be accompanied by a secondary unit called a package body While the contents of a package are meant to be us
19. can search for a particular library unit instance or side object The instance name is the name of the design element or unit that instantiates the library unit and is displayed in rounded parentheses in the Browser full qualifier Searching for an instance name displays the corresponding unit even if by clearing the full qualifier you have left the instance name invisible You can use the following wildcards to mean any one character and to mean any one or more characters or none The first unit that matches your specifications is highlighted in the Browser window If no match is made an appropriate message displays Remember that the search works down the window only not necessarily starting at the top To search again according to the same specifications choose Edit gt Find Next use the drop down menu on the Find icon and click the Find Next icon h or click Next on the Find command bar To perform an advanced search of the entire Visual Elite database using more detailed criteria click More The Find dialog box enables you to search for libraries units instances and side objects by modification date version number user checked out to type and compilation status Defining Access Rights to Units and Libraries The Visual Elite tool provides a convenient user interface for changing the permission to access and change both units and libraries see The Design Environment on page 125 This
20. displays the next or previous occurrence of the string To change the direction of the search click the Find icon The Find dialog box reopens enabling you to select the appropriate directions Next or Previous o Report The Search Results dialog box opens and contains a list of all found occurrences of the string Double click any of the findings listed in this dialog box to highlight the actual occurrence of the string in the design To find and replace a string of text 1 Choose Edit gt Replace or right click and choose Replace from the popup menu The Replace dialog box opens 2 Inthe Replace dialog box Replace field enter the string to be searched for and replaced 3 Inthe With field enter the new string 4 Specify the mode of the search and replace operation o Query Each consecutive occurrence of the found string is highlighted in the window or dialog box in which it is located As each occurrence is displayed confirm whether the string should be replaced o All All occurrences of the found string are replaced at once Changes made in closed units are saved automatically 114 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units Adding Free Text to a Diagram Among the elements you can place in Block Diagrams State Diagrams and Flowcharts is free text text that the Visual Elite tool does not process but simply displays as comments among your graphics You can attac
21. double click its icon If the unit or object is editable you can edit it once it opens Output generated by the Visual Elite tool cannot be edited in the Visual Elite environment however such output can be exported outside of the Visual Elite environment where it can be edited for details see Exporting a Textual Unit on page 273 For design units of more than one page the pages appear as side objects Double click the icon for the page to open the corresponding page of the unit Double clicking the unit icon is the same as double clicking the first page The various side objects displayed in the Browser are described in the relevant contexts throughout this User s Manual Units In Visual Elite a unit is the smallest amount of data that you can single out for compilation simulation and computer assisted debugging or generation of synthesizable or simulatable output In the Browser each unit is represented by an icon that indicates the editor in which it was created see Table 6 1 The following sections describe e Graphical Units e Textual Units e Viewing a Design Hierarchy e Projects Graphical Units There are six type of graphical units created in Visual Elite e block diagrams e state diagrams e flowcharts e algorithmic state machines ASMs e algorithmic flowchart state machines AFSMs e truth tables Each type of unit receives specific inputs processes them in a specific way and produces spec
22. exception of pages between libraries and side objects between units use the Browser Cut and Paste commands or drag and drop the selected icons To copy selected units or objects press Ctrl and drag and drop the selected icons To select multiple units and or objects on which to perform any of these operations press Ctrl and click to select their icons one by one or press Shift and click to define a range of icons Finding Units and Instances The Browser provides two commands Find and Find Next that can be used to locate a particular library library unit instance or side object 92 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Browser Controls A standard search includes only what you can currently see in your Browser window and what scrolling would show you It doesn t include for example the portion of a design tree hidden by the Collapse All command The search only moves downward in the Browser view If you have selected a unit and that unit is not scrolled too high or low for you to see the search starts from that unit Otherwise the search starts from the highest unit that is visible in the Browser view To perform a search 1 Choose Edit gt Find select Find in the popup menu or click the Find icon a A Find command bar opens below the Browser icon bar 2 Inthe Find command bar enter the specifications of the item you need to search for in the list and text areas You
23. gt Font In the Change Font dialog box specify the new font attributes 112 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units Controlling Visibility of Graphic Element Text Graphic elements in Block Diagrams State Diagrams and Flowcharts are generally accompanied by text Using the appropriate Attributes dialog box you can toggle the text on or off The text can be moved independently of the element to which it belongs To change the visibility of accompanying text choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Graphic Editor gt Visibility where Graphic Editor is Block Diagram State Diagram or Flowchart Specify which text in a given graphical editor is visible and which is invisible To make the text accompanying a particular type of element visible select its checkbox Table 5 3 lists the text elements whose visibility you can control Table 5 3 Text Elements with Visibility Control Block Diagrams State Diagrams Blocks Name States Name Action Start boxes Name Generic Parameter Sensitivity List values Text Ports Components Name Transitions Name Action boxes Name Generic Parameter values Guard condition Priority Action Action Signals Bundles Name Page Connectors Name State boxes Name Contents Action Taps Name Other Connectors Condition boxes Name Assignments Name Condition Signal Pins Name Wait boxes Name Page
24. of blocks Each click the same stack of blocks one fakes away one graphical by one But if pou interrupt operation from the history of Redo with arny new graphical your editing session action pou can t Redo further In graphical units of more than one page see Pages on page 120 the Undo and Redo icons for each page work independently To adjust the size of the buffer allotted to Undo operations choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General and enter the required number in the Undo limit option Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 119 November 2013 Common Editor Options Moving Up the Design Hierarchy Moving Up the Design Hierarchy The Visual Elite editors provide Pop and Top icons for opening design units located hierarchically above the one that you are editing The Pop icon opens the unit that instantiates the one that you are editing The Top icon opens the highest positioned unit in the hierarchy that you are editing The banner of the editing window for a diagram displays the path of the design unit that Pop and Top can climb For example if you open a flowchart as a block in a Block Diagram you see the Block Diagram name to the left of the block name However if you open a unit directly from the Browser Library view or from the Open dialog box there is no hierarchical path for you to climb Exceptions You can always climb up from a subdesign unit to its design uni
25. only to the currently selected library and the Objects list refers only to the currently selected unit To specify what to open click in the Open dialog box lists or type a pathname in the text box In a pathname the library is separated from the unit if any by a colon and each lower level unit or object if any is preceded by a period You can create a new unit or object by typing a pathname that doesn t yet exist To include or exclude a particular type of unit in the Open dialog box list of units choose Unit Filter and select the appropriate Design Unit Type in the displayed Unit Filter dialog box To include or exclude a particular type of side object in the Open dialog box list of objects choose Object Filter and select the appropriate Object Type in the displayed dialog box Printing As you work in Visual Elite you can print all or part of your graphical and textual units and the results of simulation and code generation This section describes the printing of graphical units while instructions related to the printing of results are covered in the appropriate sections of this User s Manual The following sections describe e Printing a Single Diagram e Printing a Design Hierarchy Printing a Single Diagram To print a single diagram 1 Choose File gt Printer Setup and adjust your printer setup in the displayed dialog box if required 2 Make the diagram window active or select its icon in the Browser 3 Choose
26. see your C compiler documentation Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 55 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables SLD_DONT_UNDEF This environment variable can be used before generating Verilog output code to be synthesized by Synopsys Design Compiler Importing a Verilog file into Visual Elite sometimes results in the insertion of undef directives at the end of the created modules When code is generated from these modules these undef directives are passed on to the output code You can suppress the insertion of undef directives in the code by setting the SLD_DONT_UNDEEF variable to any value or no value at all This suppression takes effect only when the Purpose control under Code Manager gt Target is Synthesis and the specified vendor target is Synopsys Design Compiler SLD _LOADER_OPTIONS This environment variable can be used to specify command line options for the gcc loader for compiling SystemC based units The default value for this variable is shared For details on configuring these options see your gcc compiler documentation SYN_CTRL_EXEC_ PATH Windows only This variable specifies as a full Linux pathname the location of the directory where files and scripts required to perform remote execution of synthesis from a PC are stored For details about this feature see Figure 24 on page 527 Be sure that the directories and files copied to your Linux station and pointed t
27. the directory pointed to by the VISUALENV environment variable Once invoked you can use the Workspace Editor for e Configuring Command Line Options e Saving Command Line Configurations Editing Command Line Configuration Files e Specifying Standard Libraries via the Workspace Editor Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 73 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite Configuring Command Line Options The topmost text box in the Workspace Editor depicts the command line to be used when invoking Visual Elite To dynamically updated the contents of this text box select and clear the various command line options listed in Table 3 2 Table 3 2 Command Line Options Resulting Command Working Directory cd directory name Inifile ini filename name Log File log filename name Scheme Script scm filename name FPGA Mode fpga Note You can also manually edit the contents of this text box The options are simultaneously selected or cleared as appropriate Caution __ Do not enter the ws command line option in the Command Line field This could result in the recursive referencing of a workspace and cause the invocation script to enter an endless loop Saving Command Line Configurations To save any command line configuration defined in a Workspace Editor session as a file click the Save button at the bottom of the Workspace Editor or use the Save or Save As menu item i
28. Chapter 2 Visual Elite Design Demo The Visual Elite tool provides a number of demonstration designs that can be accessed following installation These demos are all located in sub directories beneath the main demo directory Visual_Elite_installation_directory VisualElite demo It is recommended that you copy the entire demo directory to an area in which you have read write permission Once copied you can compile and simulate any of the demo designs and even modify them if required The following tables specify the library in which each demo design is located the top level design unit for each demo and the documentation file that accompanies each demo The documentation pdf is stored at Visual_Elite_installation_directory VisualElite demo doc The three demos listed in Table 2 1 are different HDL language specific implementations of the same design Table 2 1 Demos of Hardware Description Language Based Designing Language Library Top Unit Documentation VHDL version cpu_demo_vhd top_design cpu_demo pdf Verilog version cpu_demo_ver top_design cpu_demo pdf Mixed cpu_demo_mixed top_design cpu_demo pdf VHDL Verilog version Table 2 2 Demos of System Level Based Designing Library Top Unit Documentation C based design calc_demo_c DeskCalculator calc_demo_c pdf CoSimSIdBit_step1 C based design edge_demo_c system_function edge_demo_c pdf C based design des_demo_c_ des_system des_dem
29. DL_VER point to the location of VISUALHDL VISUALSCM This environment variable can be used to point to a file that contains instructions written using the Visual Elite Extension Language VEL that are to be executed by the Visual Elite tool immediately after invocation If this variable is not set a file named visualhl scm is searched for first in the current directory followed by the VISUALHDL directory and finally in the Scheme load path See the Visual Elite Extension Language manual VSH_LIB This environment variable is required when working with the Synplify synthesis tool from within Visual Elite Set its value as follows e Linux setenv VSH_LIB Synplify install dir 1ib summit visual 66 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite e Windows set VSH_LIB Synplify install dir lib summit visual VSH_VISUAL_COMMAND This environment variable is used to invoke Visual Elite either in the interactive or batch mode if a Visual Elite process is currently not running Before you can run Perl or Tcl scripts which interact with Visual Elite you must set this environment variable For example this variable might be assigned the value visual_elite ini visualhl ini nodisplay noexit Invoking Visual Elite To invoke Visual Elite follow one of the following procedures On Linux Before invoking Visual Elite make sure that your license is active For details see t
30. D_ULOGIC e SystemC signals of the type sc_lv must be connected to VHDL signals of the type STD_LOGIC_VECTOR STD_ULOGIC_VECTOR If you have access to a Verilog license for ModelSim you can circumvent these limitations by unsetting the NO_MODELSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE environment variable NO_NCSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE This environment variable should be set to any value when you have an Incisive NC Sim VHDL license but no Incisive NC Sim Verilog license and need to simulate one of the following with NC Sim e apure VHDL design e amixed VHDL SystemC design The following limitations apply e SystemC signals of the type sc_logic must be connected to VHDL signals of the type STD_LOGIC STD_ULOGIC e SystemC signals of the type sc_lv must be connected to VHDL signals of the type STD_LOGIC_VECTOR STD_ULOGIC_VECTOR If you have access to a Verilog license for Incisive NC Sim you can circumvent these limitations by unsetting the NO_NCSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE environment variable PERLLIB This environment variable points to the location of the Perl library used by Visual Elite The Visual Elite tool looks for any value you enter if this exists followed by the Visual Elite installation directory SLD_COMP_OPTIONS This environment variable can be used to define the gcc compiler command line options for compiling C based units The default value for this variable is gcc x c c I fPIC For details on configuring these options
31. File gt Print or click the Print icon ee and use the Print dialog box 4 To print a template together with the diagram select the With Template option The template is either the default system template or the template in which you can define per unit type and page size For details on the latter see Creating Templates for Your Designs on page 203 Three read only text boxes appear at the bottom of the Print dialog box the leftmost details the name of the unit to be printed Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 95 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Printing e the middle one displays a time stamp that records the time at which you issued the Print command e the rightmost is reserved for the page number when multiple pages are printed The other rectangular boxes can be used to type remarks that are to be incorporated in the printout if you are using the system default template for the current page Remarks are not printed if you have assigned a user defined template to this page To select multiple individual units for printing press Ctrl and click the icon of each unit To select a range of units press Shift and click the top and bottom unit in the required range Printing a Design Hierarchy The inclusive printing command called Print Tree issues a Print command for the currently selected design unit and for every unit and subdesign unit in the hierarchy beneath it However note the following points Th
32. General pane determines the resulting behavior e Ifthe option is selected following a zoom out operation you remain in the zoom mode and are able to perform another zoom operation e Ifthe option is not selected a single zoom out is executed Following the single zoom the select mode is re entered Zooming Out With the Mouse Wheel If you are running Visual Elite on any of the supported platforms to zoom out in the graphical editor press Ctrl and rotate the mouse wheel backwards If you are running Visual Elite on Windows this works for the textual editor as well ____Note To revert the zoom direction you need to set the environment variable VISUAL_WHEEL_ZOOM_ DIRECTION to 1 Default and Optimal Magnification To revert to the default magnification e Choose View gt Zoom or click the Zoom icon EA or e Click anywhere in your diagram To see your whole diagram at the largest size that fits entirely in your window choose View gt Fit to Window or click the Fit to Window icon E Shortcut Key Zooming The zoom in and zoom out operations in the graphic editors are attached to the default shortcut keys indicated in Table 4 2 Table 4 2 Zoom Shortcut Keys Default Zoom Factor Default Assignment x2 F10 Zoom In Zoom Out x0 5 Shift F10 86 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows The specified default zoom in factor for the shortcut keys can be modif
33. Reference Statement Global Connectors Name Priority Condition Page Connectors Name Case boxes Name Choices Expression Loop boxes Name Statement Using the Tools gt Options gt Editors gt Graphic Editor gt Visibility menu item to access a Visibility dialog box enables you to set the default visibility for each subsequent unit of the given element type created To change the visibility for each unit locally choose Attributes gt Visibility in the graphic editor When you change the visibility locally the new setting is applied to Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 113 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units e any currently selected element e all subsequently created elements for this unit Finding and Replacing Text in Design Units You can find all occurrences of a string either locally or across all pages of an entire unit or hierarchical design tree To find a string in a given unit 1 Click the Find icon ffl choose Edit gt Find or right click when no element is selected and choose Find in the popup menu 2 Inthe Find dialog box specify how to display the search results interactively or as a single report If interactively click Next or Previous o Interactive The Find dialog box closes and the search begins in the specified direction If the string is found its first occurrence is displayed Each subsequent click on the Find Again icon iil
34. XEMACS DELAYED_INVOKE By default when XEmacs is designated as your default text editor Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Text Editor it is launched when you invoke Visual Elite To delay the invocation of XEmacs until the opening of the first textual unit or object set this environment variable to some non null value 58 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VIS_CTRL_EXEC PATH Windows only This environment variable should be set to point to the location of the control executable that makes possible the remote compilation and simulation of designs For details see Compiling Mixed Designs in Visual Elite on page 403 To set this variable correctly first copy the VisualElite install dir remote_exec platform directory where platform is the type of the station on which the control executable is to be stored to a convenient location on a Linux machine Then point to that location using VIS_CTRL_EXEC_PATH for example home john remote_simulation Beneath the directory specified by this variable the control executable is stored in the location remote_exec platform VIS_CTRL_EXEC VIS_MAX_FONT_HEIGHT Linux This environment variable enables you to set a limit to the height of fonts that appear in the graphic editors If this variable is not set there is no limit to the height of the fonts Such unlimited font height has been known to cause t
35. _FONT_HEIGHT Linux integer VISUAL_CHECK_SIGNAL_WIDTH VISUAL_CHECK_SIGNAL_WIDTH All any value any value or no value at all VISUAL_COMP_OPTIONS compiler name options VISUAL_ENABLE_SYSTEMC_EXCEPTIONS VISUAL_EXTERN_BITMAPS All any value directory_path VISUAL_GRAPHIC_RO All any value or no value at all VISUAL_HDL_CCOMPILER Windows microsoft builder or borland Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables Table 3 1 Environment Variables cont Environment Variable Platform VISUAL_HDL_COMPILER_NAME All see Optimized C Compiler VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_OPTIONS Windows VISUAL_HDL_LIBRARY_PATH Windows directory_path VISUAL_HDL_ LOADER NAME see Optimized C Compiler VISUAL_HDL_LOADER_OPTIONS see Optimized C Compiler VISUAL_IMAGE MAX SIZE AS IE any value or no value at all VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ALL Yes No VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ SYMBOL any value or no value at all null string VISUAL_LOCAL_DISKSPACE directory_path VISUAL_MAX_CYCLES integer Default 200 VISUAL_NEW_MACRO_ STYLE any value or no value at all null string VISUAL_NO_DISPLAY_ SUBNET NAME any value or no value at all null string VISUAL_OLD_VECTOR_COMP_ASSOC_GEN any value or no value at all VISUAL_POSTSCR_IGN_PAGEDEVICE Yes No VISUAL_RCS_ EXEC DIFF PATH full pathname VISUAL_TCL_SERVER_PORT integer 3000
36. agnified to the largest size that fits entirely into your window see Figure 4 2 Figure 4 2 Enlarging Graphics Keep the mouse button down as you move from a lower corner diagonally fo an upper corner fo magnify what you enclosed e To zoom in on a particular point in a design Click the Zoom In icon or Click the point of interest The default zoom in factor is defined in the Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General pane To set the default factor enter a value for the Zoom factor option EEE Clicking the Zoom In or Zoom Out icon places the editing window in zoom mode When you use either of the second methods of zooming the current value of the Enable multi zoom option also located in the Global Settings gt General pane determines the resulting behavior e If the option is selected following a zoom operation you remain in the zoom mode and are able to perform another zoom operation e If the option is not selected a single zoom in is executed Following this single zoom the select mode is re entered 84 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows Zooming In With the Mouse Wheel If you are running Visual Elite on any of the supported platforms to zoom in in the graphical editor press Ctrl and rotate the mouse wheel forwards If you are running Visual Elite on Windows this works for the textual editor as well
37. ain initialization file If the libraries referenced by an include statement are unchanged exist and are in the same order in the Visual Elite list of libraries as in the original included initialization file then the Visual Elite tool uses the include statement in the saved initialization file When the same logical name refers to two or more different libraries the Visual Elite tool issues an error Setting Environment Variables The Visual Elite tool uses a number of environment variables which enable you to override default settings These variables are detailed further on in this section When working in Linux values assigned to environment variables are set in your login file or by using the setenv command at the system prompt displayed in the window from which you 50 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables invoke Visual Elite Once Visual Elite is invoked you can set a value for any environment variable using the unix putenv primitive which is part of the UNIX extension of VEL Visual Elite Extension Language 1 Inthe main menu bar choose Tools gt Scheme 2 In the Scheme Expression window of the Invoke Scheme dialog box enter the expression appropriate for the environment variable you need to set For example to specify the directory in which external bitmaps are stored you can enter the expression unix putenv VISUAL_EXTERN_BITMAPS directory_p
38. al Elite for example set VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_COMMAND lt c java jre bin javaw exe Invoking Visual Elite is like invoking any other Windows program You can use a number of command line options with the invocation command visual_elite exe visual_elite exe cd directory name convert env fpga ini initialization file log log file nodisplay noexit scm script file ws file name To use the command line options edit the Target line in the Shortcut pane of the Visual Elite icon Properties window For a description of the command line options available with the Windows version of Visual Elite see bdsa on page 69 For example if your executable Visual Elite file is c visualvisual_elite exe the command c visual visual_elite exe env ini c lee visualhl ini log c lee log txt retrieves the same Visual Elite window environment the open windows their size and position that was in effect the last time you exited from Visual Elite uses the initialization file named cee visualhl ini and saves file management and simulation messages in a file named c ee log txt See Command Line Options on page 68 for a description of the command line options The Workspace Editor provides an easy to use interface for configuring the command line options to be invoked when running Visual Elite for additional information see Workspace Editor on page 73 Command Line Options When invoking Visual
39. alternatively double click the unit icon e If you are editing the page that immediately precedes the one that you need to open choose View gt Navigate gt Next Page or use the Next Page icon e If you are editing the page that immediately follows the one that you need to open choose View gt Navigate gt Previous Page or use the Previous Page icon 4 e To open a specifically numbered page within a unit that you are editing choose View gt Navigate gt Find Page or click Find Page icon E and use the Find Page dialog box Moving a Page To move a page to a different position in the context of its unit 1 Choose View gt Navigate gt Move Page or click the Move Page icon D 2 Inthe Move Page dialog box enter the new location page number Moving a page causes other pages to be shifted forward or backward as appropriate The first page of a unit cannot be moved Deleting a Page To delete a page use the Browser as you would to delete any side object See The Visual Elite Workplace on page 79 122 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Validating a Unit Validating a Unit Before saving changes that you have made to a diagram you should validate it Validation checks for errors that would otherwise be reported only during compilation You can validate any unit that you can compile Synthesizability is not a problem for Block Diagrams but state machines flowcharts
40. and IP XACT units that are simulated within Visual Elite using the ModelSim or Incisive NC Sim simulators Naturally the external library units that can be instantiated must be supplied by the appropriate vendor for each of these simulators To link an external library that resides in your file system to Visual Elite 1 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Simulation gt General 2 In the language specific tab sheet of the Simulation pane verify the Select simulator option is set to the name of the simulator for which the external library units have been pre compiled by the supplying vendor 3 Inthe main window or Browser choose File gt Libraries 4 In the Libraries dialog box define the new library to link to Visual Elite You must specify both the e External Library path path to the compiled files for the external library e Library path path to the Visual Elite library to be linked with the external library 5 In the Browser select the external library that you linked to Visual Elite in the previous step 6 Choose View gt Show Hide External Units or right click and choose Show Hide External Units 7 Inthe External Units dialog box select those units that you need displayed in the Browser Note _JJJ_O If the External Units dialog box does not open there could be a non compatibility issue with your external library Verify the version of the simulator used to compile the library
41. and there is a possibility that you will need to display this image later using your Internet Explorer browser set this variable to any value Setting this environment variable limits the image size so it can be displayed by both Netscape and Internet Explorer You can set this variable with any value or no value at all 62 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ALL Set this environment variable to yes if when importing a textual unit into Visual Elite you need to retain all side objects created for the previous version of the unit having this name If neither VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ALL nor VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_SYMBOL are set or both are set to an empty string then all textual units are deleted and re created Therefore all side objects are deleted VISUAL IMPORT KEEP SYMBOL Set this environment variable to any value if when importing a textual unit into Visual Elite you need to retain any component symbols created for the previous version of the unit having this name If VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_SYMBOL is set but VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ALL is not set or set to an empty string then only component symbols are restored after import If neither VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_SYMBOL nor VISUAL_IMPORT_KEEP_ALL are set or both are set to an empty string then all textual units are deleted and re created Therefore all side objects are deleted VISUAL_LOCAL_DISKSPACE By defaul
42. assigned one value append If you do not use this variable the data written to the file automatically overwrites the previous contents of the file Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 65 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUALENV This environment variable specifies the root of the installation location for Visual Elite The variable value is set automatically when Visual Elite is invoked While you cannot change this value you can use it to indicate locations of directories relative to the installation directory for example in the Libraries dialog box This value is needed by Visual Elite to use VEL Visual Elite Extension Language For backward compatibility the earlier variables VISUALENV_VHD and VISUALENV_VER point to the location of VISUALENV VISUALHDL This environment variable specifies the directory in which the visualhl ini file to be used is stored For example to indicate that the visualhl ini file in the current directory is to be used enter setenv VISUALHDL The initialization file explicitly pointed to by this variable takes precedence over the initialization file in your working directory Any visualhl ini file specified using the ini command line option overrides this variable This environmental variable is typically used when a group needs to share a common Visual Elite environment For backward compatibility the earlier variables VISUALHDL_VHD and VISUALH
43. ate Diagram or Flowchart can be given its own individual header To assign an individual header to a page 1 Choose Attributes gt Header 2 Inthe Header dialog box type the header text for the page 3 Select the Visible option 4 Click OK The header text is attached to your mouse pointer 5 Position the pointer to place the text and click Defining a Default Global Header You can pre define a default global header for every textual and graphical unit that you subsequently create In textual units the header text is displayed as comments preceding the unit code in graphical units it is displayed in the Header dialog box To define a default global header 1 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt Global Header 2 Inthe Editors pane specify the types of graphical and textual units to which to apply the default header 3 In the text window enter the required contents of the default header To integrate the unit header in the output during code generation choose Tools gt Code Manager gt Style gt Headers and click the Unit user defined header option For details see the Attaching Headers on page 508 Entering Japanese Comments An environment variable VISUAL_TEXT_LANG is provided to indicate to Visual Elite that it is being run under a Japanese operating system The Visual Elite tool uses this information in maintaining its database Visual Elite User s Manual
44. ated asynchronous process has an assignment of the form lt current_state_signal_next gt lt lt current_state_signal_current gt VE OLD MACRO_STYLE For most Visual Elite macros for Verilog the generation of unnecessary intermediate signals is prevented If a macro with the intermediate signals was frozen and saved in a previous Visual Elite version you should unfreeze it then refreeze it again for this version If this environment variable is set the intermediate signals will be generated and old designs will not require any modifications VE_REMAIN LANG If the value of this environment variable is not Null the LANG environment variable will not be removed On Linux the LANG environment variable was removed if its value was equal to Ja_JP utf8 or ja_JP UTF 8 due to performance issues of some third party programs that caused problems when either one of these values was specified Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 57 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VE_RESIMULATION_DELAY This environment variable is used when performing resimulation using ModelSim PE and SE in Windows The environment variable enables you to specify a period of time in seconds during which the Visual Elite tool tests ModelSim for completion of design reloading The default value is 60 and the maximum value is 6000 To disable the delay set the value to 0 VE USE WORK _FOR_TEXT_UNIT This environmen
45. ath For more details on using the unix putenv primitive see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual For Visual Elite for Windows all environment variables are registered meaning that prior to invocation they can be modified using the Registry Editor program However any variable that is added to the environment tab overrides the corresponding value in the registry It is recommended that you modify values assigned to environment variables using the Registry Editor rather than adding them to the NT environment To edit the Visual Elite registry run the regedit exe program The Visual Elite environment variables are automatically entered beneath HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Mentor Graphics VisualElite version during installation To edit a field double click it The Edit String dialog box is displayed with the name and value of the variable After modifying a value click OK From this point on the Visual Elite tool uses the newly set value unless it is overridden by a different value setting in the autoexec bat file If you prefer not to use the registry to set up the Visual Elite environment variables before running Visual Elite for the first time you can set your required environment variables using your system Environment Variables window Open the System Properties window from the Control Panel click Advanced then click Environment Variables Note Once Visual Elite for Windows has been invoked you can modify value
46. bles Sinclude work group asiclibs ini std SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib std ieee SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib ieee visuallib VISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib vis_util The initialization file referenced by the include statement work group asiclibs ini has the following libraries section libraries lib_asicl work projects lib_asicl lib_asic2 work projects lib_asic2 Depiction of the Referenced Libraries in Visual Elite Regardless of how libraries are referenced in the ini file directly or hierarchically the File gt Libraries dialog box displays these libraries as if they were referenced directly by the main initialization file For example the following library list is displayed in the Libraries dialog box for the multiple level hierarchical referencing example provided in Initialization File Implementation on page 48 watchlib home larry vis_libs watchlib 1960 home larry vis_libs i960 lib_asicl work projects lib_asicl lib_asic2 work projects lib_asic2 std home hdldraw sol_elite SunOS5 Visual_lib std ieee home hdldraw sol_elite SunOS5 Visual_lib ieee visuallib home hdldraw sol_elite Sun0OS5 Visual_lib vis_util Note You cannot reference hierarchical initialization files using the Visual Elite GUI or the related VEL primitives However when saving your Visual Elite settings File gt Save Environment the Visual Elite tool expands the include statement s within the m
47. d debugger must be visible in your environment PATH enV The env option is used to retrieve the same Visual Elite window environment the open windows their size and position that was in effect the last time you exited from Visual Elite exceed Linux The exceed option should be invoked when you are running Visual Elite for Linux on a PC by means of the Exceed Xemulator fpga The fpga option invokes Visual Elite in a mode tailored for developing FPGA designs While this mode generally provides the full functionality of Visual Elite note that e It does not provide version control mechanism e It provides code generation and synthesis checks only for Synplicity Exemplar Leonardo and Altera e It does not provide translation between VHDL and Verilog or between Verilog and VHDL The FPGA version of Visual Elite uses a special license VISUALFPGA which is called up when the product is invoked help Linux The help option displays the available Visual Elite command line options 70 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite ini The ini option is used to specify an initialization file The specified initialization file is used instead of any other available initialization files ip xact The ip xact option is used to set the IP XACT license as the default license when invoking Visual Elite When using the IP XACT license only IP XACT textual and
48. dialog box you can use the environment variable VISUALENV In the Library Path text box enter a dollar sign followed by the environment variable for example VISUALENV SunOS Visual_lib std VISUALENV int_libs std Note The name of the environment variable must be preceded by a 6 Click OK When you have completed defining the libraries referenced by your environment their order of appearance in the Libraries dialog box constitutes the Visual Elite search path See The Current Library on page 132 To delete a library from the Libraries dialog box select the appropriate row in the list box and click the Remove icon je To modify a library reference that is already listed select the appropriate row and change the required information Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 129 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment Defining External Libraries The Visual Elite tool supports instantiating block diagram units taken from externally stored pre compiled libraries supplied by third party vendors Because the designs are pre compiled by the supplying vendor when instantiated they do not have to be compiled This can significantly save computer resources While the sources of these libraries remain external to Visual Elite their contents can be selectively displayed in the Browser Choose View gt Show Hide External Units This functionality is available for VHDL Verilog
49. display until you validate or compile the unit again If you invoked Visual Elite with the log option your messages are also saved in a log file Saving Units and Objects Three commands are available for saving design units and objects e Save Saves the last changes made to the currently active unit or object In a unit that consists of several pages the Save command applies only to the page you are editing Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 123 November 2013 Common Editor Options Saving Units and Objects e Save As Enables you to o Assign a name to a previously unnamed new unit or object or o Make a copy of the currently active unit or object and assign this copy a new name Using this command stores the diagram in the current library only To move or copy a unit or object to a different library use the methods described in The Visual Elite Workplace e Save All Saves all previously unsaved changes in all open Visual Elite editor and simulation wave windows If a unit or object has been modified but not saved the Save icon appears as follows in the editor icon bar If a unit or object has not been changed since it was last saved the Save icon appears as follows oy To save the contents of an editor window 1 Make the window active 2 Choose File gt Save or Save As in the editor window File gt Save All in the main menu bar or click the Save icon You can instruct the Visual Elite tool to auto
50. dual element one at a time 1 Click the Select icon le or right click anywhere in the diagram 2 Press Shift and sequentially click on each of the elements to select Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 103 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Selecting a Line To select a line up to the nearest intersection node click the Select icon then click the segment of line that you need to select To select an entire line up to all endpoints double click anywhere on the line Selecting Multiple Elements in an Area To select all the elements contained in a rectangular area as well as their associated text such as their names click the Select icon i Locate a corner of the area where no element is present and click and drag a rectangle around all the elements you need to select The elements change color indicating they have been selected Selecting Elements Based on Predefined Criteria To select elements based upon predefined criteria 1 Inthe graphical editor click Edit gt Query Select or right click in an empty area of the diagram and choose Query Select from the popup menu 2 Inthe Query Select dialog box click the Drawing option to select elements found throughout the entire current page or click the Select List option to select a subset of already selected elements 3 Define the elements to be selected using the Select by Name and Select by Type options as required For example
51. e boxes and connectors Specifying Graphic Element Colors To set default fill and bordering line colors for graphic elements in Block Diagrams State Diagrams and Flowcharts choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Graphic Editor gt Colors where Graphic Editor is Block Diagram State Diagram or Flowchart 106 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements To modify the color of graphic elements locally select the element s then right click and choose Colors In the Set Color dialog box select the fill and line colors Color is applied to all selected items not just selected items on the current window To specify default colors to be displayed when graphic elements are selected with the cursor when the Attributes dialog box is open or during a pause in simulation choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt Colors Resizing Graphic Elements To resize blocks states and all other resizeable graphic elements 1 Select the graphic element 2 Place your pointer on the edge or corner you need to move inward or outward The pointer changes to a crosshair 3 Click and drag toward or away from the center of the graphic element The edge or corner moves with your pointer resizing the graphic element ee You can use the same method to convert the default circular shape of a state to an ellipse Moving Graphic Elements After you
52. e printout from Print Tree might contain many pages but it is a single file and its pages are numbered in a single continuous sequence Print Tree does not print packages package bodies Verilog includes or side objects other than pages To print a design hierarchy select a design unit rather than a subdesign unit If you select a subdesign unit only that one subdesign unit is printed If a design unit is selected all the subdesign units in its hierarchy are printed If you select a page for Print Tree the printout also includes the other pages of the same unit If a library unit or subdesign unit is instantiated more than once in your tree it is printed only once Any skipping of duplicate instantiations is reported in the Messages window If some HDL text unit needs fresh compilation the Print Tree operation does not proceed past that pair For other units compilation status is not a consideration To print a design hierarchy printing a unit and all the other units it instantiates 1 2 a 4 Click File gt Printer Setup and adjust your printer setup in the displayed dialog box if required Make the unit active in an editor window or select its icon in the Browser Choose File gt Print Tree The Print Tree dialog box opens Make your selections in the Print Tree dialog box then click OK Each page of the printout shows the name of its own unit even though the page numbering is a single sequence co
53. e the horizontal and vertical scrollbars located at the bottom and right side of the window Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 87 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows If your mouse is equipped with a mouse wheel you can scroll as indicated in Table 4 3 Table 4 3 Scrolling Operation Hold Key Wheel Rotation Scroll up Forward Scroll down Backwards Scroll left Forward Graphical editors only Scroll right Backwards Auto Scrolling and Auto Panning in Graphical Editors When you draw a new graphic element or drag an existing graphic element beyond the confines of the window frame the editing window automatically scrolls in the direction of the drawn or dragged element To enable automatic paning when the mouse pointer is brought to an edge of a window choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General and select the Perform auto panning option For example if you enable this option and bring the pointer to the right hand edge the window pans scrolls to the right Redrawing the Active Window To redraw the graphics of the active editor window use any of these methods e Hit the F2 key e Choose View gt Refresh on Linux or Window gt Refresh on Windows e On Linux Click the middle mouse button Making the Grid Visible The Visual Elite graphic editors guarantee that your elements are positioned on a certain grid To make the grid visible choose Vie
54. echnology independent logic gates and sequential logic components that can be incorporated in block diagrams For more details see Macro Components on page 250 The libraries are stored at the following locations 126 Linux installation dir Visual_Elite platform library_set library_name Where library_set is o Visual_lib if you are compiling or simulating your design with the Visual Elite interpreted VHDL compiler Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment o the name of the appropriate library set supplied for the supported external compiler simulator See External Compilers on page 603 e Windows installation dir VisualEliteversion library _set library_name Where library_set is o int_libs syn_int_libs or syn93_int_libs if you are using the Visual Elite interpreted compiler o bc5_libs syn_bc5_libs syn93_bc5_libs ms_libs syn_ms_libs or syn93_ms_libs depending on which optimized compiler you are using See External Compilers on page 603 SystemC Libraries VisualElite provides the following SystemC Libraries e STD_C SYSTEM_C FAST_C These mandatory libraries are used by Visual Elite to internally access semantic information e SYSTEM_C_DTTYPE Contains definitions of special SystemC data types stored in packages Automatically included for compilation of a SystemC design e communication_channels Contains EliteC com
55. ed among different design units should be included in a SystemC package From a software point of view a SystemC package corresponds to a SystemC library A SystemC package contains two parts a package declaration header and a package body code A package declaration includes SystemC declarations such as communication channel protocols and data types It should be used by any unit that requires its functionality A package body includes the SystemC code that implements the declarations made in the header A package declaration can have no more than one package body or none 138 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Units Editing Textual Units For editing textual units the Visual Elite tool provides the following editors e XEmacs the default editor e Mentor Graphics DesignPad editor e Visual Elite internal text editor e any external editor that can be invoked from within Visual Elite For details see Writing Text on page 263 Viewing a Design Hierarchy The Browser displays the hierarchical structure of a design starting from a selected unit Any unit that instantiates other units and therefore has a design structure beneath it is indicated by an expandability icon To display a design hierarchy select the unit icon in the left hand pane of the Browser and choose View gt Expand gt Expand All or click the Expand All icon fg The Browser displays a tree like diagram wh
56. ed by other design units that is to be treated as if they are part of each of them the package body is for information that although necessary to the package is not to be used by other design units A package body typically defines subprogram bodies and deferred constants For details see your VHDL documentation While a package can have a package body only one no more it does not have to Textual Units in Verilog Based Designs In a Verilog based design among the textual units available are Verilog modules and primitives both of which can be instantiated in a larger design You can instantiate a module directly or indirectly through an external unit An external unit is an abbreviated version of a module for which for reasons of convenience the complete version resides elsewhere An external unit contains the module ports parameters and a pointer to the complete location of the module Parallel to packages which are available when designing in VHDL see Textual Units in VHDL Based Designs on page 137 the Visual Elite tool provides an additional type of unit called an include An include is a collection of declarations variables subprograms and define statements that spare you the repeating of such declarations inside various individual units One or more Verilog design units can use a specific include in order to access its contents Textual Units in SystemC Based Designs In a SystemC based design code to be shar
57. eed to change See Selecting Elements in a Diagram on page 103 2 Choose Attributes gt Element The Attributes dialog box for the initial element in the selection group opens 3 Define the required attributes using the Attributes dialog box 4 Click Apply The defined attributes for the initial element in the selection group are saved and the Attributes dialog box for another selected element is automatically opened 5 Continue to sequentially modify the attributes for the various elements 6 When you have made the required modifications to the last selected element click OK The dialog box closes Defining Default Names for Graphic Elements To define a default name for any or all of the graphic elements of a given type 1 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Graphic Editor gt Default Names where Graphic Editor is Block Diagram State Diagram or Flowchart 2 Inthe Editors pane of the Options Manager dialog box enter the prefix and optional suffix of the default name for each listed element A running integer is appended to the prefix when you create the element Prefixes and suffixes can be defined for the following graphical elements e Block diagrams blocks components signals or bundles and taps e State diagrams states transitions and connectors e Flowcharts start boxes action boxes condition boxes wait boxes loop boxes end loop boxes case boxes end case boxes stat
58. en To specify an appropriate standard library set select the library from the Library Set dropdown list Click Update to replace the files previously displayed in Workspace Editor with those of the selected library To save the selected library set in the current ini file click Save at the bottom of the Inifile editing window or choose File gt Save Save As External Tools Supported by Visual Elite The following tables list the external tools currently supported by Visual Elite For details about the latest versions of these tools supported by Visual Elite see the ReadMe file provided with this release Supported Synthesis Tools Table 3 3 lists the supported Synthesis tools Table 3 3 Supported Synthesis Tools Synopsys Design Compiler Synopsys Behavioral Compiler Synopsys FPGA Express Synopsys CoCentric Cadence Synergy Exemplar Galileo Exemplar Leonardo Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 75 November 2013 Setup and Invocation External Tools Supported by Visual Elite Table 3 3 Supported Synthesis Tools cont QuickTurn HDL ICE _ Synplify BooleDozer VHDL only Altera MaxPlus2 VHDL only Lucent Synovation VHDL only Supported VHDL Simulation Environments The supported VHDL simulation environments are listed in Table 3 4 Table 3 4 Supported VHDL Simulation Environments MTI ModelSim Mentor Graphics Corporation SpeedWave Cadence I
59. erface Main Menu Bar and Main Window Main Window Message Pane Options Manager Using the Mouse The Popup Menu Manipulating Windows Browser Controls Printing Saving and Reloading Your Working Environment Customizing Visual Elite Shortcut and Function Keys Online Help and Tool Tips More specific topics are covered as appropriate in other sections of this manual Main Menu Bar and Main Window When you initially invoke Visual Elite in Windows after the copyright message is displayed the opening or main menu bar displays on your screen The main menu bar includes four menus File Tools Window and Help It is from here that you begin to work In the Linux version of Visual Elite the same four menus are displayed in the main window that opens after the copyright message 7 Main Window Message Pane The message pane has two functions It displays traceable errors warnings and notes along with other messages generated by Visual Elite It can be used as a Linux like console in which you enter commands Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 79 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Main Window Message Pane Displayed Messages Messages displayed in the message pane are color coded as follows Table 4 1 Messages Message type Non traceable message In Windows both the message text and the hyperlink are in the color designated above In Linux only the hyperlink is colored the text remains black
60. g file messages displayed in the Simulation Control window are preceded by the letter S Messages displayed in the main Message window messages about validation compilation and miscellaneous data handling issues are preceded by the letter M nodisplay The nodisplay option which can be used in conjunction with the scm option disables the display of any graphics related to Visual Elite If a situation arises during initialization which would ordinarily require input from you for example notification that a particular library does not exist this is handled using the value supplied by the batch mode default answer option of the vel env set flags primitive For details see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual noexit The noexit option which can be used in conjunction with the sem option causes the Visual Elite tool not to exit the simulation environment following completion of a script invoked simulation run SC This option is used with the Visual SLD Pro LNL and Visual SLD Pro LNL Plus license packages The sc option causes the Visual Elite tool to run only with SystemC functionality available including code entry and simulation with the OSCII simulators Invoking Visual Elite without this option causes the Visual Elite tool to run with only HDL functionality available including code entry and simulation with the Visual Elite internal simulator or external simulators scm The scm option can be used t
61. graphical units are available lib or library The lib or library option is used to load a file containing a list of additional libraries The additional libraries are listed in the library file using the following format library name library path The lib or library options have the following formats lib library_file_name library library_file_name The libraries from the library file are loaded along with the libraries from the ini file license The license option is used to specify the license type to use when invoking Visual Elite Use the following format license lt license type gt The license type can be one of the following bdsa Block Diagram Stand Alone entry license e fpga VISUALFPGA license e c_entry C entry license e ip xact IP XACT license log The log option can be used to specify a file in which to save all the file management and simulation messages you receive from Visual Elite You can specify any valid system file name for the log file Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 71 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite e If you use the log option but omit the log file name your log file is named visualhl log and is stored in the directory from which you invoked Visual Elite e If you specify the name of an existing file then new messages are added to the end of the file old messages are not automatically deleted e Within the lo
62. h free text including RCS keywords to an entire unit Free text comments can be linked specifically to the following graphical elements Block Diagram Editor blocks and components signals and bundles taps State Diagram Editor states transitions junctions connectors Flowchart Editor start boxes action boxes state boxes decision boxes wait boxes loop and end loop boxes case and end case boxes connectors You cannot attach a comment to an end box Besides putting free text into a diagram you can store text as a side object associated with a diagram For details see The Visual Elite Workplace on page 79 Linking Free Text to an Entire Unit To create and link free text to an entire unit 1 Click the Free Text icon fee The Free Text dialog box opens Inthe Free Text dialog box type the text to place If you need to edit as you type see Writing Text on page 263 for details of the available keyboard commands Some of the icons described are also available in the Free Text dialog box Select the appropriate Attach to option to specify where to include the free text comments in the code generated for your unit For VHDL units you can attach comments to either entity or architecture declarations For Verilog units you can attach comments to module declarations If you select Graphics only your comments are displayed in the diagram but not in the generated code If you have
63. he Installation Guide Once your license is active 1 In order to be able to invoke Visual Elite without specifying its full pathname add the appropriate bin directory to your machine search path For example setenv PATH Visual_Elite installation dir SPATH When the PATH includes the specified directory you can invoke Visual Elite by entering the command visual_elite 2 If you need to invoke Visual Elite from a particular directory because of the way your pointers are set up use the cd command to go to that directory The directory from which you invoke Visual Elite becomes your working directory in which temporary files are written and from which the path to other directories is relative 3 Enter the command together with the appropriate command line options visual_elite bdsa c_entry cd directory name convert deb debugger name env exceed fpga help ini initialization file log log file nodisplay noexit scm seript file ws file name Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 67 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite On Windows Before invoking Visual Elite make sure that the protection mechanism used on your machine is installed For details see the Installation Guide Note If you need to use a version of Java other than that provided in the Visual Elite installation you must set the VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_COMMAND environment variable prior to invoking Visu
64. he Library list 128 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment 3 Click the Add New Existing Library icon 4 A new empty row is displayed before the currently selected library or at the bottom of the Library list The Visibility option is automatically enabled 4 In the Library list type the logical name to assign to the library The logical library name is the one that is displayed whenever the Visual Elite tool makes reference to this library You can assign a library any valid name except for the name WORK For the significance of assigning the name WORK to a library see The Current Library on page 132 Note _ A If you reference a library that someone else has created be sure to use the same logical name that was used by the original designer Not doing so can result in an incomplete reference within the design 5 Inthe Library Path list enter the pathname of the system directory where the existing library resides Either type the pathname of the directory in the text box or use the browse mechanism to locate and enter the pathname The directory pathname can be either the full pathname or a pathname relative to the working directory You can point to an existing system directory in which no library data was previously stored which is an alternate way of creating a new library When specifying the path to libraries in the Libraries
65. he Visual Elite tool to hang when you zoom in to a high degree of magnification The source of the problem is in xterm windows If you encounter this problem set the environment variable as follows setenv VIS_MAX FONT_HEIGHT 120 If the value 120 does not solve the problem set a smaller value VISUAL_CHECK_SIGNAL_WIDTH If you set this environment variable to any or no value the Visual Elite tool performs checks on signals and communication channels to verify that scalars appear as thin lines in block diagrams and that vectors or bundles are represented by thick lines VISUAL_COMP_OPTIONS Linux This environment variable enables you to override the default ANSI C compiler and or options for performing optimized compilation on VHDL design units For details about default values and how to override these values see Optimized C Compiler on page 602 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 59 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUAL_DATA_BASE_CHECK This environment variable can be used when you are receiving wrong line numbers in error messages during units compilation for local signals Set the VISUAL_DATA_BASE_CHECK environment variable to 1 then run Visual Elite and compile the problem unit Compilation with the VISUAL_DATA_BASE_CHECK environment variable set to 1 fixes the line number on the fly and displays the following notification message Need to sort Signals Declaration
66. ich includes all units that the selected unit instantiates and any lower level units that those instantiate The tree like diagram displayed in the Browser depicts all units instantiated by a given block diagram regardless of whether or not the units are stored in the same library In a block diagram the name of the instantiating block might differ from the name of the unit which it instantiates In such cases the Browser displays the name of the instantiating block However if the full qualifier is displayed both the block name and unit name are displayed see Displaying Levels of Detail on page 91 For subdesign units the Browser displays the name of an instantiating state or action box rather than the name of the subdesign unit However if you request that the full qualifier be displayed then both the state or action box name and the subdesign name are displayed If a block instantiates a unit that has not been created it is represented by an empty unit icon Subdesign units that do not have any contents are also indicated by this icon To hide any units instantiated by a design unit select the icon for the unit and choose View gt Collapse gt Collapse All or click the Collapse All icon ff To hide only the lowest visible level of instantiated units use the Collapse One Level command This command works only on complete sets of siblings that are hierarchically beneath the unit you selected Visual Elite User
67. ied using the VEL Visual Elite Extension Language zoom in factor request utility To change the zoom in factor interactively 1 Choose Tools gt Scheme 2 Inthe Scheme expression window of the Invoke Scheme dialog box enter the expression zoom in factor request 3 Click Eval 4 Inthe User Text dialog box type the required zoom in factor and click OK To modify the zoom out factor use the VEL zoom out factor request utility For information on how to change the shortcut key assignments see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual Note When using the shortcut keys to zoom in or out click once in the editor window to define the zoom point Using the Panorama View In the graphical editors you can display in a secondary window that provides a panoramic view of the entire current page of the unit To access the Panorama window choose View gt Panorama Within the Panorama window a red frame indicates that portion of the page currently displayed in the main editor window To pan to different portions of the design page in the main window click and drag the red frame To increase or decrease the size of the Panorama window right click and choose the Scale Up or Scale Down menu item Scrolling and Panning The following sections describe e Scrolling in the Editors e Auto Scrolling and Auto Panning in Graphical Editors Scrolling in the Editors To scroll in the graphical or textual editors us
68. if you need to select all the blocks whose names begin with the letter M in a block diagram click the Blocks option and enter the string M in the Select by Name text box 4 Specify a signal or port name to select the items connected to the signal or port Regular expressions are allowed a Check the Tree option to select all items connected to the signal or port recursively in the design b Check the Include Pages option all items connected to the signal or port on all pages contained in the current unit Using the various available options you can specify as many criteria as you require Once the elements you specify are selected you can manipulate them for example you can change the color of the selected elements see Specifying Graphic Element Colors This type of selection is particularly useful in conjunction with defining attributes for multiple graphical elements 104 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Selecting All Elements in a Diagram To select all the elements in your diagram click the Select All icon le or right click and choose Select All Deselecting Elements in a Diagram The following sections describe how to deselect individual and all elements in a selection group Deselecting Individual Selected Elements To deselect one particular element in a selection group click the Select icon le then press Shift and click the element
69. ific outputs Furthermore each type can be an instance in a higher level block diagram and therefore part of a larger design hierarchy 136 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Units Textual Units In addition to graphical units the Visual Elite tool enables you to create and edit textual units as described in the following sections e Textual Unit Language Constructs e Textual Units in VHDL Based Designs e Textual Units in Verilog Based Designs e Textual Units in SystemC Based Designs e Editing Textual Units Textual Unit Language Constructs In addition to graphical units the Visual Elite tool enables you to create textual units with the help of any of the constructs available in the hardware description language you are using for design Table 6 3 Graphical Units entity module header file package architecture s primitive code package body external configuration s include package package body Textual Units in VHDL Based Designs In a VHDL based design you create a textual design unit using a primary unit called an entity and a secondary unit called an architecture The entity unit as the receiver of input and producer of output describes the inputs and outputs without detailing where the inputs go or where the outputs come from The architecture unit describes the internal manipulations of the inputs and outputs Each entity must have at least one architecture
70. interface reflects the distinctions made by the operating system under which you run Visual Elite e Under Windows the Visual Elite tool supports the DOS mode of permission and therefore defines a unit or library as universally read writable read only or entirely inaccessible Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 93 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Browser Controls e Under Linux the Visual Elite tool uses the Linux differentiation of owner group and all other users For each of these types of users a unit or library can be read writable read only or entirely inaccessible By default when a new library is created read write permission is granted only to the owner of the library All other users get read only permission for the units stored in that library If however you change the permission of a library all units subsequently created in that library inherit the permission of the library Only the owner the creator of a library or unit can change its permission status To change the permission of a library or unit 1 Open the unit for editing or select the unit or library in the Browser To select multiple individual units whose permissions are to be changed press Ctrl and click on the icon of each unit or press Shift and click the top and bottom unit in a range 2 Inthe editor window or Browser choose File gt Permission 3 In the Permission dialog box define the new permission for the unit or library i
71. itors as well as in the Symbol and Template editors you can insert external bitmap images Such images do not have a logical significance in the design but can be used for aesthetic and or documentation purposes The bitmaps to insert can be stored in one of the following directories which are listed according to their order of priority e The directory specified in the Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General gt Bitmap directory option The directory referenced by the environment variable VISUAL_EXTERN_BITMAPS e The default directory that you create at visual_installation_dir runtime bitmaps e A directory named bitmaps that you create in the directory where the current ini file is stored To insert a bitmap in a design unit 1 Right click in an empty area of the design page 2 Choose External Bitmap 110 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units The Bitmaps dialog box lists all the bitmaps stored in the bitmap directories searched by Visual Elite 3 Select the name of the bitmap file to be inserted and click OK _ You can also insert a bitmap which is stored in a different directory Click Import in the Bitmap dialog box Browse to the location of the bitmap you need to insert Click OK in the Bitmap dialog box The bitmap is inserted in the unit window and copied to the designated bitmap directory Text in
72. its own name You can also use this method to refer to a library even when it is not the current library e By the name WORK which means the current library whatever it may be For example if your current library is called ADAPTER and you need to instantiate the unit called CONVERTER that is stored there and in the future you need that unit to come from the ADAPTER library no matter what library is current at that time you should refer to the unit explicitly as ADAPTER CONVERTER However if in the future you need that unit to come from whatever library is the current library from ADAPTER if it is the current library or from some other library if it is current then you should refer to the unit as WORK CONVERTER 132 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment Viewing Library Contents To see the full contents of a library use one of the following methods Select the library icon to view its contents in right hand pane of the Browser e Click the expandability icon or double click the library icon to view its contents in the left hand pane of the Browser immediately below the library name e Select the library icon and click the Expand One Level icon 8 to view its contents in the left hand pane of the Browser immediately below the library name To revert to a libraries only view click the Libraries icon amp in the Browser toolbar The follo
73. ization file In this first example the libraries section of the initialization file references five libraries libraries watchlib home larry vis_libs watchlib 1960 home larry vis_libs i960 std SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib std ieee SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib ieee visuallib SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib vis_util This example illustrates how the libraries section of an initialization file utilizes the include statement to reference a single file which in turn references the enumerated libraries libraries Sinclude work projects visual_libs ini Within the file Avork projects visual_libs ini the following libraries section appears libraries watchlib home larry vis_libs watchlib 1960 home larry vis_libs i960 lib_asicl work projects lib_asicl lib_asic2 work projects lib_asic2 std SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib std ieee SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib ieee visuallib SVISUALENV SVARCH Visual_lib vis_util The final example depicts a multiple level referencing of libraries Once again the Visual Elite tool references the main initialization file whose library section includes the statement libraries Sinclude work projects visual_libs ini The libraries section of the referenced file is as follows libraries watchlib home larry vis_libs watchlib 1960 home larry vis_libs i960 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 49 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Varia
74. kplace Browser Controls e To select a particular unit and all objects for the unit expand the Browser to display the objects to be selected click the unit icon right click and choose Select All When you choose Tools gt Validate Compile Unit or Compile Tree or right click and choose Compile all selected units are processed sequentially When you select multiple units or side objects in the Browser to print to individual files the Print dialog box Template field displays the library name followed by the literal string object name During the creation of the print files each file is assigned a unique name in the destination directory which reflects the name of the unit or object and the extension appropriate for the type of print file that was generated Performing Data Management Operations From within the Browser you can perform the following data management operations Table 4 4 Data Management Operations Operation Applies to Copy libraries units or any side object except a page Rename libraries units or any side object except a page Delete libraries units pages or any other side object To perform any of these operations using menu commands 1 Inthe Browser window select the library unit or object icon 2 In the Browser File or Edit menu or in the Browser popup menu see The Popup Menu on page 82 choose the appropriate command To move units and side objects with the
75. lation on VHDL design units Available options are e microsoft for Microsoft Visual Studio builder for Borland Builder borland for Borland C VISUAL_HDL_COMPILER_NAME This environment variable enables you to override the default ANSI C compiler for performing optimized compilation on VHDL based design units For details about default values and how to override these values see Optimized C Compiler on page 602 Note O The VISUAL_HDL_CCOMPILER variable replaces the VISUAL_HDL_COMPILER_NAME and VISUAL_HDL_LOADER_NAME variables both of which are still supported VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_COMMAND Windows only When using version of javaw exe should be 1 6 or newer the VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_COMMAND environment variable enables you to override the default VE runtime java executable file Set the environment variable as follows set VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_OPTIONS C Program Files Java jre7 bin javaw exe VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_OPTIONS This environment variable enables you to override the default Windows Region and Language setting You must set the environment variable as follows set VISUAL_HDL_JAVA_OPTIONS mx256m Duser language en Duser country US Dfile encoding Cp1252 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 61 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUAL_HDL_LIBRARY_PATH Windows only This environment variable is mandatory only if you are using a C compiler and specifies two location
76. le default names for blocks start with B BO S B1 and so forth and default names for signals start with eo S SO S1 and so forth If required you can define your own preferred default names for details see Defining Default Names for Graphic Elements on page 106 In Visual Elite you can assign a graphic element any name that is legal in VHDL or Verilog depending on the language in which the unit is depicted In SystemC block diagrams you can assign legal C C names 3 To create more elements of the same type click where you need them to be placed You do not need to click the icon again since once selected each of the icons remains selected until you select a different icon or perform a right click Right click to cancel the drawing of a graphical element after you have started Selecting Elements in a Diagram In the Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart editors you can select elements either individually or together with other elements Selecting Individual Elements To select individual elements and any associated text 1 Click the Select icon le or right click anywhere in the diagram 2 Click on an element to select it and its accompanying text if any The element and any accompanying text changes color to indicate it is selected When you select another element the previously selected element is deselected Selecting More Than One Element One at a Time To select more than one indivi
77. matically save the changed files in your working environment at a predefined frequency To automatically save changed files at a predefined frequency 1 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General 2 Inthe Editors pane select the Auto save every option 3 Specify the save frequency in minutes 124 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Chapter 6 The Design Environment This section describes the environment you work in when creating designs in Visual Elite including e Naming Conventions e VHDL93 compatible units e Libraries in the Design Environment e Units e Viewing a Design Hierarchy e Projects Naming Conventions As you work in Visual Elite the naming conventions for libraries units side objects graphic elements and so forth follow the conventions of the language of design therefore these names can be any name which is valid in VHDL Verilog except for a Verilog escaped identifier or C C VHDL93 compatible units Whether created in Visual Elite or imported from outside VHDL93 compatible units can have extended identifier names Such names must begin and end with a backslash character and can include any of the supported graphic characters such as amp and more except for the character itself for example n 2Y For more details see section 13 3 2 of the VHDL Language Reference Manual LRM Libraries in the Design Environ
78. ment All work created in Visual Elite is stored in libraries For an explanation on how to define access permission to libraries and the units stored in them see Defining Access Rights to Units and Libraries on page 93 The following sections describe e Libraries Supplied by Visual Elite e Creating Your Own Libraries Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 125 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment Referencing Libraries for Your Environment Defining External Libraries Viewing Libraries in the Browser The Current Library Viewing Library Contents Libraries Supplied by Visual Elite During installation a number of write protected standard libraries are copied to your system HDL Libraries SystemC Libraries HDL Libraries VisualElite provides the following HDL Libraries ieee Contains a number of packages defined in the IEEE 1076 1987 Language Reference Manual LRM std Contains the VHDL packages STANDARD and TEXTIO vis_util and vis_util_mti Contain packages which define general design utilities For details see Packages on page 571 STD_VER This mandatory library is used by Visual Elite to internally access semantic information gates This library contains a graphic element for each of the gates depicted in the Verilog Language Reference Manual LRM macrosyn_ver macrosyn_vhd and macrosyn_systemC Contain a number of configurable t
79. munication channel protocols stored in packages The libraries are stored at the following locations e Linux installation dir Visual_Elite_version platform VisualSLD_lib library_name e Windows installation dir VisualEliteversion VisualSLD_lib library_name Creating Your Own Libraries Before you can begin working in Visual Elite you have to create at least one library in which to store your designs You might decide to organize your working environment in such a way that one design is stored in its own dedicated library while one or more other libraries are created to store units that are included in many designs The choice of how to organize the libraries that you work with is yours or if you are part of a team is the responsibility of whoever is overseeing the combined effort Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 127 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment To create a library for storing your own work 1 Choose File gt Libraries The Libraries dialog box opens 2 Inthe Library list double click in an empty row of the Library column type the logical name to assign to the library The logical library name is displayed whenever the Visual Elite tool makes reference to this library You can assign a library any valid name except for the name WORK For the significance of assigning the name WORK to a library see The Current Library on page 132 3 In the Library Path column e
80. n question Noe 8 In the Permission dialog box displayed for Visual Elite under Windows the owner of the unit or library is not displayed However as in Linux a non owner is unable to change the settings in this dialog box The Visual Elite tool distinguishes between two kinds of read only status e Units stored in standard libraries supplied with Visual Elite are totally read only protected They can participate in simulation but they cannot be modified or compiled Such units can not be the top of a design hierarchy e Units stored in read write libraries but which currently have read only status for example a unit that is fetched using the Visual Elite version control In addition to being simulatable such a unit can constitute the top of a design hierarchy and can also be compiled However such a unit cannot be modified Opening Units and Side Objects There are two ways to open units and side objects in Visual Elite e Double click the unit or object icon in the Browser e Choose File gt Open When you choose the second method the Open dialog box is displayed The Units column of the dialog box lists units of all kinds and subdesign units The Objects column lists side objects of the selected design unit Side objects include breakpoint sets waveforms stimulus objects 94 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Printing HDL output and more The Units list refers
81. n the Workspace Editor s File menu The saved file is given the name you assign plus the suffix vhdws On your Windows desktop a Workspace icon associated with the saved file is created Double click the icon to invoke Visual Elite with the command line option values set in the file Editing Command Line Configuration Files A saved command line configuration file is a Tcl script You can edit the script to further customize the invocation of a Visual Elite session using any text editor For example you might need to set any number of environment variables from within this Tcl script prior to the Command Line Options signature To set a value for an environment variable in Tcl use one of the following commands 74 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation External Tools Supported by Visual Elite Windows append env variable_ name value Linux append env variable_ name value Specifying Standard Libraries via the Workspace Editor By default the library set initially displayed in the Inifile field of the Workspace Editor editing window is the one currently listed in the ini file To specify that a different set of standard libraries std ieee visuallib and others where appropriate be referenced by the ini file being used in a particular workspace click Edit next to the Inifile entry and use the Inifile editing window To access any ini file stored in your system choose File gt Op
82. ncisive Support by Visual Elite started NC Sim with version v2 1 Supported Verilog Simulation Environments The supported Verilog simulation environments are listed in Table 3 5 Table 3 5 Supported Verilog Simulation Environments _ ModelSim Synopsys VCS VCSI Cadence Incisive NC Sim Cadence Verilog XL Mentor Graphics Corporation 76 Sim I F Plus Visual Elite Users Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation External Tools Supported by Visual Elite Supported SystemC Simulation Environments The supported SystemC simulation environments are listed in Table 3 6 Table 3 6 Supported SystemC Simulation Environments OSCI SystemC 2 0 Supported Version Control Systems Table 3 7 lists the supported version control systems Table 3 7 Supported Version Control Systems Company Tool Rational ClearCase Synchronicity DesignSync Public Domain RCS Public Domain CVS Lint Subversion SVN Supported Style Checkers Table 3 8 lists the supported style checkers Table 3 8 Supported Style Checkers Leda Proton Mentor Graphics Corporation Design Checker Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 77 November 2013 Setup and Invocation External Tools Supported by Visual Elite 78 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Chapter 4 The Visual Elite Workplace This section covers general conventions involved in working with the Visual Elite user int
83. ndows installation dir Visual_Elite_version flexlm license dat Note n If you are working with another application that uses the LM_LICENSE_FILE variable for Visual Elite you can alternatively use the variable summit d_LICENSE_FILE The location specified by the summit d_LICENSE_FILE variable takes precedence over that specified by LM_LICENSE_FILE in the event that both are simultaneously being used to specify different Visual Elite license file locations LOGNAME The Visual Elite tool uses this environment variable which is mandatory for purposes of access permission and version control to determine the owner of libraries and design units Normally you would not assign a value to this environment variable because the Visual Elite tool uses the name belonging to the login account If you do set a value for this variable this value overrides the name stored in the login account NO_MODELSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE This environment variable should be set when you simulate a pure VHDL design or a mixed VHDL SystemC design with ModelSim and you have a ModelSim VHDL license but no ModelSim Verilog license You can set this variable with any value or no value at all 54 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables You must adhere to a number of limitations in your mixed design e SystemC signals of the type sc_logic must be connected to VHDL signals of the type STD_LOGIC ST
84. nter the pathname of a not yet existing system directory where the library is to be stored Either type the pathname of the directory or use the browse mechanism to locate and enter the pathname The directory pathname can be either the full pathname or a pathname relative to the working directory the directory from which you invoked Visual Elite 4 Click OK The directory you specified is created automatically When you create a new library it becomes your current library See The Current Library on page 132 Referencing Libraries for Your Environment In order to be visible to your working environment a library must be listed in the Libraries dialog box As you develop a design you can instantiate any unit stored in any of the libraries appearing in this list To display the Libraries dialog box choose File gt Libraries Besides any libraries that you have created the list in the Libraries dialog box should display the logical name and path for each of the write protected libraries supplied with the Visual Elite tool and appropriate for the compilation and simulation environment you are intending to use See Libraries Supplied by Visual Elite on page 126 To point to additional libraries that can be accessed by your machine you must add these libraries to the list 1 Choose File gt Libraries 2 To display the new library before a currently listed library in the Browser select the existing library in t
85. o by the SYN_CTRL_EXEC_PATH environment variable are assigned the following permissions for directories 755 and for files 555 Use the chmod command to set the appropriate permissions For example gt chmod 555 USERID Windows only This environment variable is used for Visual Elite network extension purposes e If your network is Linux based assign this variable your personal user ID For example set USERID 15317 56 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables To check the value of your user ID enter the id command at the system prompt e If your network is Windows based enter any 5 digit integer For example set USERID 13579 This number henceforth serves as your user ID VARCH Linux This environment variable is set during invocation and cannot be changed Its most common use is to specify as a parameter the platform on which you are working for example in the Libraries dialog box VE_ DEFAULT CS ASSIGNMENTS This environment variable is used to control code generation of a state machine State machine code is generated when all of the following are true e This environment variable is set to any value except 0 e The mode of the state machine is asynchronous e Encoding is neither One Hot nor One Cold During code generation for each current state signal before the code generated for the transitions the gener
86. o specify a script written in the Visual Elite Extension Language that is to be run as soon as Visual Elite is invoked You can also run scripts after invoking Visual Elite The use of VEL is described in the Visual Elite Extension Language manual synchronicity The synchronicity option is used to set the synchronicity integration license as the default license when invoking Visual Elite 72 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Invoking Visual Elite tcl The tcl option is used to run a Tcl initialization script when Visual Elite is invoked The tcl option has the following format tcl init_tcl_file You must specify the name of the Tcl initialization script to be run vds The vds option is used to set the VDS VGuide integration license as the default license when invoking Visual Elite ws or workspace The ws or workspace option can be used to invoke Visual Elite using the command line options defined in the Workspace Editor Workspace Editor The Workspace Editor provides an easy to use interface for configuring the command line options to be invoked when running Visual Elite To invoke the Workspace Editor Windows e Choose Start gt Programs gt Visual Elite version gt Workspace Editor OR e Select a Workspace icon right click and choose the Edit menu item Linux e Run the script ws which is found in the root installation directory of Visual Elite This is
87. o_c pdf SystemC based des_demo_sc des_system des_demo_sc pdf design Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 45 November 2013 Visual Elite Design Demo 46 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Chapter 3 Setup and Invocation For complete directions on how to install Visual Elite on your system see the Installation Guide After installation be sure to consult the ReadMe file for last minute news The nstallation Guide details where to find the ReadMe file This section describes e Displaying the License Agreement The Initialization File e Using Multiple and Hierarchical Initialization Files Setting Environment Variables e Invoking Visual Elite e Workspace Editor External Tools Supported by Visual Elite Displaying the License Agreement To display the complete wording of the license agreement for Visual Elite 1 Choose About gt About Visual Elite 2 In the dialog box displayed click the Agreement button The Initialization File The Visual Elite tool records settings related to your working environment within an initialization file The information stored in the initialization file includes which libraries to keep available and which to use as your current library the default library for storage and retrieval In addition the initialization file records various operational settings ranging from the base time unit for simulation to the waveform colors for various data types
88. oing and Redoing Steps of Work e Moving Up the Design Hierarchy e Displaying Global Data e Pages e Validating a Unit e Saving Units and Objects Creating a New Unit To create a new unit using the main or Browser menu choose File gt New and specify the type of unit that you need to create for example Block Diagram State Diagram or Flowchart The appropriate editor window opens and you can begin creating the new unit The Visual Elite tool enables you to depict units in any of three languages VHDL Verilog or SystemC To override the global new unit language and create a unit in a different language choose File gt New gt Language gt Unit Type in the Editor For VHDL the Visual Elite tool enables you to create units that conform to either the VHDL 87 or VHDL 2008 standard To set the default standard of new units choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Compiler Settings gt General and set the Compile as value in the VHDL tab sheet of the General window If you select VHDL 87 VHDL 87 units are created VHDL 2008 units are created when you select VHDL 2008 The Compile as option also determine the way a VHDL unit is compiled see Specifying VHDL Type on page 611 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 101 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Graphic Elements This following sections describe issues related to working with graphic elements in the Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowcha
89. ollowing limitations exist with regard to the definition and use of external libraries e Converting Library Types A library initially defined as an external library cannot be converted to a regular Visual Elite library and a library initially defined as a regular library cannot be converted to an external library The only way to assign to a regular library the name of a previously defined external library or an external library the name of a previously defined regular library is to a Delete all of the units from the existing library b Delete the now empty library itself c Define a new library of the desired type and assign it the same name that was previously assigned to the library that you deleted e Visual Elite Current Library An external library cannot be set as the Current Library in the Browser e Renaming Units You cannot rename the units stored in external libraries e Copying Units You cannot copy units to or from an external library defined in Visual Elite and o your external file system o another external library o aregular Visual Elite library Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 131 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment Viewing Libraries in the Browser By default all libraries defined in your Visual Elite environment are enabled for display in the Browser To disable the visibility of a library so that it is not displayed in the Browser 1
90. ombination Control O Open unit object Control X Cut Control S Save library Control C Copy in design unit object Shift Control S Save All Control V Paste 98 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Online Help and Tool Tips Table 4 5 Shortcut and Function Keys cont Key Combination Command Key Combination Shift Control C Copy library Control Z Undo unit object Shift Control M Move library Delete Delete unit object Shift Control R Rename library Control M Comment Line unit object in the text editors or Toggle Pin Connector Direction in the Block Diagram Editor Control R Refresh Libraries Control U Uncomment Line Control P Print Control Y Invoke Symbol Editor oa Note aaaaaaaaassssssssssssss 5a If the Num Lock button in the keyboard is pressed Num Lock is active the keyboard shortcuts will not work at all Table 4 6 summarizes the use of function keys in Visual Elite Unlike the shortcut key combinations listed in Table 4 5 function keys cannot be reconfigured Table 4 6 Function Keys Function Key Command Function Key Online Help F7 Minimize All windows Refresh Screen Shift F7 Restore All windows Display Element Attributes F8 Linux only Bring forward open dialog dialog box box window F4 Linux only Bring forward Main or F10 Zoom In Simulation Control window
91. or greater VISUAL_TEXT_LANG ja VISUAL_WAVE_WB _PRINT any value VISUAL_WRITE_MODE append VISUALENV directory_path VISUALHDL 4 directory_path VISUALSCM full pathname VSH_LIB directory_path VSH_VISUAL_COMMAND invocation_command options 1 Indicates that this environment variable is set during installation 2 If you choose to set this variable define it in the right hand window of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER group located under software Summit Visual Elite version number 3 Replaced by VISUAL_HDL_CCOMPILER variable but still supported 4 Following installation you must update the path to the Borland lib directory Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 53 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables COMPUTER_NAME Windows only The network name of your PC This environment variable is required if you intend to compile and simulate locally on your PC using VCS or VCSi For details see Compiling Verilog Based Designs on page 634 You must define this variable only if your computer does not have a network name On Windows NT 2000 the computer always has a network name LM LICENSE FILE This environment variable should include the Visual Elite license file location The Visual Elite tool looks for the value entered by the user if this exists followed by the following location e Linux installation dir Visual_Elite_version platform flexlm license dat e Wi
92. place graphic elements in an editing window you can move them as described in the following sections Moving an Individual Graphic Element To move an individual graphic element 1 Click the Select icon le or right click anywhere in the diagram 2 Click and drag the element to its new location Moving Multiple Graphic Elements 1 Select the elements you need to move 2 Click and drag a selected element to a new location All selected elements are moved Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 107 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Copying Graphic Elements In Block Diagrams State Diagrams and Flowcharts you can copy any graphic element For the copies the original names are used where reasonable for example the names of instantiated units and components in block diagrams Where it is not reasonable to duplicate the original name for example the name of a state new default names are automatically assigned In some cases while the original name is retained the name might require editing such as local connector names When copying elements you can use the system clipboard or bypass the clipboard using a shortcut The clipboard as in many other graphical and text editors is an off screen location from which many duplicates can be made You copy to the clipboard and paste from the clipboard To copy graphic elements not only within a unit but also between units of the same type using the clipboard
93. quently created The borders of the page are marked in the editor windows and graphical elements placed in the page are not allowed to exceed the limits of the page borders To locally change the page size of an existing graphical unit choose Attributes gt Page Setup in the editor window and use the Page Setup dialog box to redefine the page size of the specific unit Note _ ___ You can always increase the page size of an existing unit but you can only reduce a unit page size if there are no graphic elements which extend beyond the borders of the new size Navigating Multi Page Units Block diagram state diagram and flowchart units can extend over several pages However the pages are a graphical convenience and have no logical significance All the elements on the various pages of a unit interact logically as if they were on the same page The three editors that support multiple page units feature five page related menu items in their View gt Navigate sub menu Next Previous First Last Find and Move and one menu item in the File gt New sub menu Page These commands also have their own icons Creating a New Page To create a new page 1 In the editor window choose File gt New gt Page 2 Inthe New Page dialog box enter the number of the page to be created Accept the default value to append the new page to the already existing page s for the unit To insert a page between two existing pages
94. r s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Undoing and Redoing Steps of Work Undoing and Redoing Steps of Work Each of the Visual Elite graphical editors has an Undo and Redo icon Using the Undo command cancels recent changes made to graphic elements in a design unit For example you can undo the deletion of a signal in a Block Diagram or you can undo a change in the action of a state in a state machine You cannot undo actions that do not relate to specific graphic elements For example using the Undo icon you cannot undo a change to the list of generics defined for a VHDL unit Saving your unit does not affect your ability to undo work but closing your window does When you open a window you cannot undo changes that were made before you last closed it To undo the latest action or actions affecting your graphic elements click the Undo icon t as many times as necessary To redo an action or actions that you undid immediately after the Undo command click the Redo icon 4 as many times as necessary The Redo command does not work on any changes you make to graphic elements after performing an Undo command Steps that do not change your graphic elements for example working on your list of VHDL generics or changing your zoom factor do not count Fourth operation moved tO Third operation created RNS Second operation copied O n a ERD Using Undo is like unbualding Using Redo is like rebuilding a stack
95. rd See Writing Text on page 263 for a complete set of text editing commands Editing Text on Screen Much of the text displayed in graphical units can be edited directly in the graphical editor window without having to bring up dialog boxes For example the names of all graphic elements the width of signals all free text actions transition guard conditions and more When you edit such textual items on screen you change their values in the database To edit text on screen 1 Select the text 2 Click the text The selected text now appears in an editable rectangle 3 Modify the text as required To cancel editing if required press Esc 4 Click anywhere in the editing window to finalize the editing If the edited text is single lined you can press Return or Enter to finalize the editing Specifying Font Style for Text To specify a default font to be used for text in graphical and textual units 1 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt Fonts 2 In the Editors pane specify the font to be used for graphical element names free text and in the text editors a In the appropriate field click the drop down button b In the Font dialog box set the font attributes OO A In dialog boxes that provide a Font button you can locally override the default font In Block Diagrams State Diagrams and Flowcharts you can modify the font used for any selected text Choose Attributes
96. route option Deleting an Element To delete an element such as a block or signal in the Block Diagram Editor use one of the following methods Select the element and click the Delete icon G Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 109 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements e Select the element and choose Delete or Cut in either the Edit or popup menu If you use the Cut command the deleted element is retained in the clipboard Select the element and press the Delete key Using Free Graphics in Graphical Editors In the Block Diagram Stage Diagram and Flowchart editors you can add free graphics to your design units Free graphics do not have a logical significance on the design but can be used for documentation purposes To use any of the free graphics commands 1 Right click in an empty area of the design page 2 Choose one of the following Line Circle Arc or Rectangle 3 Inthe editing window click and begin drawing the required shape or line Click again to conclude the drawing 4 If required draw any additional lines or shapes of the same type you might need 5 Right click to exit the drawing mode for this shape or line You can manipulate free graphics objects as required Select one or more of the shapes in the editing window Right click and choose Fill Unfill Group or Ungroup Inserting External Bitmaps in Graphical Units In the Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart ed
97. rt editors e Placing Graphic Elements in a Diagram e Selecting Elements in a Diagram e Deselecting Elements in a Diagram e Defining Attributes for Graphic Elements e Defining Default Names for Graphic Elements e Specifying Graphic Element Colors e Resizing Graphic Elements e Moving Graphic Elements e Copying Graphic Elements e Duplicating Graphic Elements e Rotating Graphic Elements e Deleting an Element e Using Free Graphics in Graphical Editors Inserting External Bitmaps in Graphical Units Placing Graphic Elements in a Diagram In the Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart editors several of the icons are used to place graphic elements into the diagram For example Table 5 1 Graphic Element Icons Create a block in the Block Diagram Editor Create a state in the State Diagram Editor To place a required element 1 Click the appropriate icon The outer shading of the icon changes indicating that it is selected 2 Click in the window where you need the element placed 102 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Graphic Elements Depending on what the element is you might need to click twice for example for a block in the Block Editor or even three times for a transition in the State Diagram Editor More detailed instructions are given where appropriate in the following chapters As a rule the element is automatically assigned a default name For examp
98. s Bringing a Window to the Front If any part of a Visual Elite window is visible to bring that window to the front and make it active click in the visible part of the window On Linux stations place your pointer anywhere in any Visual Elite window and use the following function keys to control the Visual Elite windows e F4 brings the main or Simulation Control window to the front e F8 brings to the front any currently hidden dialog box that because it is open is preventing other work Adjusting Magnification To display by default the entire contents of the first page of a graphical unit at the largest possible size when the unit window is opened choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General and select the Open in Full Zoom Mode option To magnify or reduce your graphics or revert to the default magnification use the Zoom command The following sections describe e Zooming In e Zooming Out e Default and Optimal Magnification e Shortcut Key Zooming Zooming In You can zoom in on a particular area or point in a design Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 83 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Manipulating Windows To zoom in on a particular area of a design enlarging your graphics Choose View gt Zoom or the Zoom icon J or Click and drag from the bottom corner to the diagonally opposite top corner of the area you need to enlarge The area you defined is m
99. s keep units with the same name in different libraries By structuring the Visual Elite search path as your design requires you can specify which libraries to search through using the Libraries dialog box see The Current Library on page 132 and in which order in seeking any unit for which you have not explicitly specified a library Side Objects Each of the units stored in a library can have one or several associated side objects Many of the side objects contain parameters to be used during simulation simulation results or output data to be sent to an external system When you select a design unit in the left hand pane of the Browser its side objects are displayed in the right hand pane Table 6 2 lists the various side objects that can be associated with units Each type of side object is represented by a specific icon Table 6 2 Side Objects Side Objects page textual stimulus SystemC clock definition graphical stimulus expected output simulation results generated testbench generated VHDL generated Verilog generated EDIF netlist breakpoints signal variable names H D free text object memory component names profiler report E F p synthesis script component symbol module compiler object VCD file 1 ER Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 135 November 2013 The Design Environment Units To open a side object from the Browser
100. s the shared libraries used by Visual Elite and the lib directory of the C compiler that you have installed and intend to use Its setting takes the format set VISUAL_HDL_ LIBRARY _PATH Visual_Elite install dir bin compiler install dir 1lib For example if you are planning to use the Borland C 5 0 compiler for optimized compilation of VHDL units the definition of this environment variable might appear as SET VISUAL_HDL_LIBRARY_PATH C VISUAL BIN C BC5 LIB If you are performing optimized compilation of some or all of your VHDL design units this variable must be defined for your system VISUAL_HDL_LOADER_NAME This environment variable enables you to override the default ANSI C loader for performing optimized compilation on VHDL based design units For details about default values and how to override these values see Optimized C Compiler on page 602 Note The VISUAL_HDL_CCOMPILER variable replaces the VISUAL_HDL_COMPILER_NAME and VISUAL_HDL_LOADER_NAME variables both of which are still supported VISUAL_HDL_LOADER_OPTIONS This environment variable can be used to specify command line options for the loader when compiling VHDL based designs in the optimized compilation mode For details on configuring these options see the documentation supplied with your loader VISUAL_IMAGE_MAX SIZE AS IE If you are performing an HTML capture of a Visual Elite graphical unit on Linux
101. s for its environment variables using the unix putenv primitive just like in the Linux version Available Environment Variables The environment variables used by Visual Elite are listed in Table 3 1 and are described in greater detail in the sections that follow Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 51 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables Table 3 1 Environment Variables Environment Variable COMPUTER_NAME Platform Windows Valid Value LM_ LICENSE FILE LOGNAME2 All pc name file_pathname user name NO_MODELSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE any value or no value at all NO_NCSIM_VERILOG_LICENSE PERLLIB any value or no value at all full pathname SLD_COMP_OPTIONS gcc command line options SLD_DONT_UNDEF SLD_LOADER_OPTIONS All any value or no value at all gcc command line options SYN_CTRL_EXEC_PATH Windows directory_path USERID VARCH Windows personal user ID platform VE_DEFAULT_CS_ASSIGNMENTS 0 or any value VE_OLD_MACRO_STYLE VE_REMAIN_LANG any value any value other than null VE_RESIMULATION_DELAY integer number of seconds VE_USE_WORK_FOR_TEXT_UNIT VE_VERILOG_MEMORY_OLD_STYLE any value or no value at all any value or no value at all VE_WAVE_SIGNAL_HEIGHT_OLD_STYLE 1 VE_XEMACS_DELAYED_INVOKE VIS_CTRL_EXEC_PATH Windows non null value full pathname VIS_MAX
102. sign hierarchies and version controlled projects The default Browser views are set in the Tools gt Options Manager gt Browser gt General pane Changing settings in the Browser General pane of the Options Manager dialog box does not affect currently opened Browser windows Only subsequently opened Browser windows are affected The view options include e Project View e Design Browser View Browser View Project View Click Integrated Project View to display all version controlled projects in the Browser window Click Generic Project View to display projects in a separate Project Manager window Design Browser View When you click Design Centered Browser View the Browser displays all available libraries in your Visual Elite environment To reveal the design units stored in a library double click the library icon Selecting a hierarchical unit and clicking the Expand All icon displays only the design hierarchy beneath that unit Click Explorer Like Browser View to revert the Browser to a Windows Explorer type browser in which you can view the contents of multiple libraries concurrently 90 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Browser Controls Browser View Click either One Pane or Two Panes display mode To toggle between the One Pane and Two Pane views in an already opened Browser window click the View Mode icon in the Browser toolbar see Figure 4 4 Figure 4 4 Browser Vie
103. specified Entity Architecture or Module in the previous step select the appropriate Position option to determine the position of your comments relative to the appropriate declaration in the generated code If you need to modify the style size and color of fonts used click Font and use the Font dialog box To draw a frame around the free text select the Frame Visible option Click OK The text attaches itself to your pointer Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 115 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units 8 Click in the diagram to place the text Once created and linked you can move or copy the element of free text like any other diagram element To revise the text select only the free text element and click the Free Text icon Its dialog box reopens Linking Free Text to a Specific Graphic Unit To link free text to a specific graphic element 1 Select the element 2 Click the Free Text icon AE 3 Inthe appropriate field of the displayed dialog box for example the Comments dialog box or the Comments tab sheet of the Attributes dialog box type your text Text that you enter in the Before field is placed in the generated code just before the declaration line that represents the element Text entered in the At or Same Line field is appended to the declaration line After text is placed just after the line For more specific information about the location of the free te
104. standard libraries the initialization file should be updated from within Visual Elite See Referencing Libraries for Your Environment on page 128 Noe ___ RZ LA 2 The original visualhl ini initialization file is automatically maintained by Visual Elite Therefore it is recommended that you refrain from editing this file using a text editor Specifying Libraries Using the Workspace Editor You use the Inifile Editing window in the Visual Elite Workspace Editor to specify a required set of standard libraries std ieee visuallib and others where appropriate to be referenced by the ini file used in a particular workspace For details see Workspace Editor on page 73 48 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Using Multiple and Hierarchical Initialization Files Using Multiple and Hierarchical Initialization Files The Visual Elite tool supports the use of multiple and hierarchical initialization files The initialization file described in The Initialization File on page 47 is the main initialization file and is the one called by Visual Elite The main initialization file can reference one or more additional initialization files used for accessing design libraries The operational settings used by Visual Elite are always those recorded in the main initialization file Initialization Files Examples The following examples depict how libraries are referenced using a single initial
105. t and you can always take advantage of certain hierarchical data intrinsic to HDL text units Displaying Global Data Each of the Visual Elite graphic editors enables you to display a summary of global unit related information that is taken from the various Attributes gt Declarations and Attributes gt Properties state diagrams dialog boxes For state diagrams lists of all states and transitions in the unit are also provided To display a summary of global unit related information choose View gt Global Data in the editor window or where available click the Global Data icon EA Pages In the Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart editors the work surface in the editor window is called a page You can manipulate page units as described in the following sections e Defining Page Size e Navigating Multi Page Units e Creating a New Page e Accessing a Specific Page e Moving a Page e Deleting a Page 120 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Pages Defining Page Size For graphical designs you can specify a predefined page size or define your own page size To specify a default page size and orientation for use in all your designs choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt Page Setup The page size and orientation you specify in the Page Setup sheet of the Editors pane are used in all Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart units subse
106. t the Visual Elite tool stores simulation data in a file located beneath the standard temporary directory as defined by your operating system When long simulations containing a large number of events are run space in the temporary directory might not suffice Use this variable to allocate a directory in which to store simulation data on your local machine This directory should have about 700M of free disk space VISUAL_MAX_CYCLES During simulation certain VHDL code can cause the simulator to enter a zero delay loop An example is the following concurrent signal assignment statement outl lt NOT out1 To prevent the indefinite execution of such a statement by default the Visual Elite tool sets a maximum limit of 200 simulation cycles that are executed when a zero delay loop is entered then simulation is halted and an alert message is generated This variable enables you to modify this maximum limit For example if you need to set an upper limit of 5 000 simulation cycles you can set this value as follows e Linux Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 63 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables setenv VISUAL_MAX CYCLES 5000 e Windows set VISUAL_MAX CYCLES 5000 VISUAL_NEW_MACRO_STYLE By default if the macro component in a library have both sym and sym1 graphical symbols defined the Visual Elite application uses the sym symbol Set this environment variable to
107. t variable must be set together with selecting the Use work instead of library name option in the Tools gt Code Manager gt Export dialog box so that the names of non standard VHDL libraries are replaced with a reference to the WORK library in the VHDL code generated by Visual Elite You can set this variable with any value or no value at all VE_VERILOG_MEMORY_OLD_ STYLE In the block diagram editor you can create sub signals from Verilog two dimensional arrays memories The sub signal will be a one dimensional array of the memory s word width size The memory word is selected by an index with possible values defined by the memory size bounds The order in which the two bound ranges are defined in the Attributes dialog box is controlled by this environment variable Defining this environment variable will produce the old style used in versions prior to 4 3 1 of Visual Elite in which the word size bounds are the first dimension while the memory size bounds are the second dimension Te 30 O 1023 The default without this environment variable defined will define the bounds in the new style starting from Visual Elite 4 3 1 similar to VHDL where the memory size bounds are the first dimension while the word size bounds are the second dimension 0 1023 T 0 VE WAVE SIGNAL HEIGHT OLD STYLE Set this environment variable to if you need to use the old wave signal s height VE_
108. truth tables or HDL units should be validated with your intended synthesis tool to uncover any possible incompatibilities To include synthesizability in your validation checks 1 Choose Tools gt Code Manager gt Target In the Target pane select the Verify synthesizability option if it is not already selected Specify Synthesis as your purpose and select your synthesis vendor 2 Choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Compiler Settings gt General In the Compiler Settings pane select the Verify synthesizability after compilation option To validate a unit 1 Activate the unit window or select the unit in an active Browser window 2 Choose Tools gt Validate in the editor or Browser or click the Validate icon gion Progress of validation is reported in the Messages pane of the main window 3 Inthe main window Message pane check whether any messages indicate an error To see what caused a specific error for example a disconnected signal or an illegal line of HDL double click the error message line The Visual Elite tool displays the unit and highlights the appropriate graphic element or line of text To print the messages choose File gt Print in the main menu bar To retrieve the messages when you return later to edit the unit further In the editor window choose View gt Messages Window e In the Browser select the unit icon and choose View gt Messages Window The messages remain available for re
109. tual editor windows e generated code windows Closing Windows To close a specific window choose File gt Close or click the Close icon Hl To close all open windows choose Window gt Close All in the main or Simulation Control window Browser Controls The VisualElite browser controls enable you to efficiently manage your design The following sections describe how to use the various Browser controls for e Opening the Browser Window Setting Browser Display Defaults e Displaying Levels of Detail e Selecting a Unit or Object for Processing or Printing e Performing Data Management Operations e Finding Units and Instances Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 89 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Browser Controls Defining Access Rights to Units and Libraries e Opening Units and Side Objects For information about viewing library contents and design hierarchies in the Browser see The Design Environment on page 125 Opening the Browser Window To display the Browser choose Tools gt Browse in the main menu bar Depending on the setting currently active either a single paned or double paned adjustable window displays on your screen The window features an icon toolbar At any time you can invoke any number of Browser windows thereby displaying different portions or views of your environment simultaneously Setting Browser Display Defaults You can choose among different default Browser views of de
110. ual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Setup and Invocation Setting Environment Variables VISUAL_RCS_EXEC_DIFF_PATH This environment variable enables you to specify the diff command to be used by RCS during ci operations When you use this environment variable set the value to be the full pathname to the diff command used by your system VISUAL TCL SERVER_PORT This environment variable is used if the Windows 32 bit operating system freezes while invoking Visual Elite To successfully invoke Visual Elite set VISUAL_TCL_SERVER_PORT 3000 you can use numbers from 3000 and above Then restart Visual Elite VISUAL_TEXT_LANG This environment variable is used to indicate to Visual Elite that it is being run under a Japanese operating system The Visual Elite tool uses this information in maintaining its database For more details see Entering Japanese Comments on page 117 VISUAL_WAVE_WB_ PRINT Setting this variable with any value results in waves being printed in black and white on color printers and improved resolution of signals when printing on black and white printers VISUAL_WRITE_MODE This variable enables you to specify that data written to a file by a design during simulation should be appended to the previous contents of the file Set the value as follows e Linux setenv VISUAL_WRITE_MODE append e Windows set VISUAL_WRITE_MODE append Note This variable if used can only be
111. unit Projects are useful for keeping track of various versions of your work To invoke the Visual Elite Project Manager choose File gt Projects or click the Projects icon E in the Browser The Projects dialog box opens To display fewer projects choose File gt Projects in the main or Browser menu bar and use the Projects dialog box For details on how to create manage and view projects see Project Management on page 163 140 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013
112. v4 5 117 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units Set the environment variable as follows Linux setenv VISUAL_TEXT_LANG ja Windows set VISUAL_TEXT_LANG ja Where ja is in lowercase Once the environment variable is set you can choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt Fonts and select the jisx0208 1983 option in the Editors pane The Editors pane Font sheet enables you to select from a number of available fonts for the language in use For more details about using the Visual Elite environment variables see Setup and Invocation on page 47 Note ___ As an alternative to using the VISUAL_TEXT_LANG environment variable provided by Visual Elite you can use the general environment variable LANG This variable should eos 99 be assigned the value ja Automatically Aligning Graphics and Text In a graphical editor to align graphic elements and text boxes automatically 1 Select the elements to align 2 Choose Edit gt Align 3 Use the controls in the Alignment dialog box Editing Textual Units The Visual Elite tool offers you a number of possibilities for editing textual units e XEmacs the default editor e Mentor Graphics DesignPad editor e Visual Elite internal text editor e Any other external editor of your choice that can be invoked from within Visual Elite For details see Writing Text on page 263 118 Visual Elite Use
113. vering the whole Print Tree output file 96 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Saving and Reloading Your Working Environment To select multiple hierarchical units on which to implement Print Tree press Ctrl and click the icon of each such unit To select a range of units press Shift and click the top and bottom unit in the required range Saving and Reloading Your Working Environment The working environment that you create as you work in Visual Elite refers to all sorts of general settings and preferences that you specify by means of menus and dialog boxes These settings can either be saved or discarded depending on your requirements The working environment is saved in the initialization file currently in use which by default is the initialization file that was loaded during invocation For a description of the initialization file see Setup and Invocation on page 47 To save your working environment 1 In the main menu bar choose File gt Save Environment 2 Inthe Save Environment dialog box specify the Visual Elite initialization ini file in which you need to store your settings The Save Environment command also records which Visual Elite windows are open and how they are sized and positioned If you invoke Visual Elite with the env option the system restores the window configuration that was on your screen when you last used the Save Environment command
114. w gt Show Grid in your editor window menu Show Grid is a toggle that can be used to make the grid visible or invisible as needed As a shortcut you can press F6 to alternately display and hide the grid Minimizing and Restoring Windows In addition to the usual methods for minimizing individual windows you can use the F7 function key when your pointer is in any open Visual Elite window to minimize all editor windows and Waveform windows except the main window 88 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace Browser Controls In addition to the usual methods for restoring individual minimized windows you can use Shift F7 when your pointer is in any open Visual Elite window to restore all minimized editor windows and Waveform windows On Windows you can also use the Window gt Iconize All and Window gt Deiconize All menu item Reducing the Number of Windows Displayed To reduce the number of windows the Visual Elite tool opens concurrently on your screen choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General and enable the Reduce number of windows option When this option is enabled the Visual Elite tool limits the number of windows so that any additional window that you open replaces an open window of the same type Windows are divided into the following types e block diagram state diagram flowchart or symbol editor windows e truth table windows tex
115. w Icon a a One Pane Mode Two Pane Mode Displaying Levels of Detail To control the amount of detail displayed for each design unit in the Browser use the Tools gt Options gt Browser gt Display pane To determine the colors of the different items of information use the Tools gt Options gt Browser gt Colors pane To override these settings for a particular Browser window click the Browser Options icon EEJ and use the Browser Options dialog box Selecting a Unit or Object for Processing or Printing By selecting a unit or stimulus object in the Browser and then choosing the appropriate command in the Tools menu or clicking the appropriate icon you can perform the following operations e Validate or compile a design unit or stimulus object e Simulate a design unit e Generate output code for a design unit or stimulus object Selecting the icon in the Browser and choosing File gt Print causes the selected unit or object to be printed You can select multiple individual units for validation compilation or printing in a number of ways Press Ctrl and click the icon of each unit to be selected e To select a range of units press Shift and click the top and bottom unit in the required range e To select all the units in a Browser window position the mouse pointer over empty space in the window right click and choose Select All Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 91 November 2013 The Visual Elite Wor
116. wing sections describe how the library contents are displayed in the browser e Unit Icons in the Browser e Name Display in the Browser e Side Objects Unit Icons in the Browser In the Browser different icons represent the different types of units contained in a library as detailed in Table 6 1 Table 6 1 Browser Unit Icons block diagram state diagram flowchart ASM AFSM truth table VHDL SystemC package or Verilog include VHDL SystemC package body VHDL Verilog Regent module empty unit VHDL entity VHDL architecture VHDL configuration Verilog module or macromodule Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 133 November 2013 The Design Environment Libraries in the Design Environment Table 6 1 Browser Unit Icons Unit Verilog primitive Verilog external Verilog gate SystemC module SystemC module implementation The icon for any subdesign unit a flowchart within a flowchart or a state diagram within a state diagram is displayed as a rightward branch beneath the unit that contains the subdesign unit The same rightward branching is used for secondary HDL units To enhance the display of hierarchical units choose Tools gt Options Manager gt Browser gt Display and click e Display solid lines By default the branching lines that link the different units displayed in the Browser are dashed lines Select this option to specify a solid black line be used
117. x specify any of the following options o Horizontal the number of elements to be created in a row o Vertical the number of elements to be created in a column o Diagonal the number of elements to be created diagonally You can enter numeric values for both Horizontal and Vertical and create a two dimensional array of elements However if you enter a value for Diagonal neither Horizontal nor Vertical can be specified 4 Move the pointer to position the elements and click to drop them The elements are spaced evenly from one another Rotating Graphic Elements Depending on the graphical editor that you are using the elements in Table 5 2 can be rotated Table 5 2 Elements That Can Be Rotated Diagram Elements Block Diagram signal names components connectors connector names block names taps State Diagram connectors connector names other element names Flowchart connectors connector names box names To rotate a graphic element 1 Select the element to be rotated 2 In the Edit toolbar click the Rotate icon With each click the element rotates 90 degrees counterclockwise In Block Diagrams after you rotate a component unless disabled autorouting can be used to adjust the paths of signals in order to keep them as clear and separate as possible To disable autorouting click Tools gt Options Manager gt Editors gt Global Settings gt General and deselect the Perform auto
118. xt in the HDL output of your design see Where Free Text Appears in the HDL Code on page 523 4 To make your text visible in the diagram select the Visible option 5 Click OK The positioned text automatically includes the name of the element Linking Free Text to a URL Any free text integrated in Block Diagram State Diagram or Flowchart units can be linked to the URL of your choice When this hyperlinked text is clicked the default internet browser on your system is invoked and the specified URL is loaded To define a hyperlink for free text 1 Click on the text to select it Right click and choose Hyperlink 2 3 In the Hyperlink dialog box enter the URL to be referenced by the hypertext 4 Click OK Defining Unit Headers In addition to free text the Visual Elite tool enables you to specify unit headers that can incorporate RCS keywords for version control purposes When a unit is checked in see 116 Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 November 2013 Common Editor Options Text in Graphic Units Version Control on page 141 the keywords are evaluated the values display the next time the unit is checked out or fetched For example if you enter the RCS keyword Header after evaluation the following displays in place of the keyword full pathname of the RCS file revision number date and time author state who locked the unit Defining a Page Header In principle each page of a Block Diagram St
119. you can specify the following settings e Version Control e Browser e Editors e Compiler Settings e Simulation e Synthesis e HDL to Graphics e Customization To access the Options Manager choose Tools gt Options Manager Using the Mouse Throughout this manual instructions related to working with the Right handed mouse assume that you are using a right handed mouse If this is mouse not the case on your machine modify these instructions accordingly For example you are often instructed to click with the mouse Unless otherwise specified clicking means pressing and immediately releasing the left mouse button However even when Chick instructions explicitly direct you to click with the right mouse Left handed button the assumption is once again that you are working with a mouse right handed mouse Naturally whichever type of mouse you are working with you are We entirely free to configure the operations of its buttons to suit your preferences Click Visual Elite User s Manual v4 5 81 November 2013 The Visual Elite Workplace The Popup Menu The Popup Menu In addition to the menu bar that appears at the top of every Visual Elite window a variable popup menu is available in the graphic editors Block Diagram State Diagram and Flowchart the Symbol Editor and the Browser To display this menu press the right mouse button Figure 4 1 The Popup Menu Attributes Copy Cut Delete Array
120. you to add to menus the features that you use regularly such as commands and VEL scripts and remove from menus the features that you rarely use For more information about VEL scripts see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual You can customize menus and key assignments by creating those handiest for you You can preserve the original Visual Elite settings and create separate template files for customized settings To customize menus and key assignments preserve the original Visual Elite settings and create separate customized settings template files 1 In the Tools gt Options Manager gt Customization pane User defined menu directory option enter the name of the directory in which to store your customized settings 2 Inthe main menu bar choose Tools gt Customize and use the Customize Menu dialog box Note Menu configuration changes made using the Customize menu item are not applied immediately to see the changes you must re invoke Visual Elite To revert to the Visual Elite default settings click Default in the Tools gt Customize dialog box See note above Shortcut and Function Keys Table 4 5 summarizes the default settings for shortcut key combinations used in Visual Elite You can reconfigure these key combinations using the Visual Elite Extension Language VEL For details see the Visual Elite Extension Language manual Table 4 5 Shortcut and Function Keys Key Combination Command Key C

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