ELECTRICAL AND
COMPUTER ENGINEERING
The
entry point into the Mentor Graphics suite of tools is through Design Manager.
Design Manager is a graphical shell that allows you to launch applications and
manage your designs. All operations that can affect your designs must be done
through Design Manager. For example, Design Manager allows you to delete,
rename and copy designs. While the UNIX commands rm, ren and cp allow the same
operations to be performed, they do not know how to update the Mentor Graphics
database. USE ONLY DESIGN MANAGER FOR SUCH OPERATIONS.
To
invoke Design Manager, follow these steps:
1. Log onto a UNIX
machine. Get a terminal window (right
click, Tools, Terminal), create a sub-directory in your home directory where
you will store your Mentorgraphics files.
Move to this directory by typing “cd your_new_directory_name”
2. Type "dmgr &"
at the prompt. This command starts up Design Manager. (Do not type the " " only what is
inside the " ")
3. A window similar to Figure 1
will appear.
Figure 1: Example Design Manager Window
The
left half of the window shows the available tools. The right half shows your
directories. The arrows at the bottom of
the file window allow you to move through the directory structure, double
left-clicking will also open a folder.
More on these functions later.
The
main Design Manager window or the inside windows may be moved, resized,
minimized or closed in the same way other windows are manipulated. You must
click on the window to be manipulated, first, however.
Before
going any further, let's take a look at some Mentor Graphics basics. In Design
Manager, and most other tools, the left mouse button is used to click on (or
select) items. The right mouse button is used to bring out pop-up menus. The
pop-up menus are context sensitive. That is to say that, depending on where
your mouse pointer is when you right-click, a different menu may appear. Try this
now by first selecting the left tools window and then using the right mouse
button to bring up the pop-up menu. You must click in the window, not on the
title bar or window border. Notice how the menu's title is ``TOOL OPERATIONS.'' Now do the same for the right window. Here,
the pop-up menu is different and is context sensitive.
To
begin our tour of Design Manager, start by maximizing the window by using the
maximize button in the upper right hand corner of the window. The window should
now fill the entire screen. You will notice that the inner windows got larger
but their contents don't fill the new areas. To clean up your windows, use the
right mouse button to bring out the pop-up menu in the Tools window and select
"UPDATE WINDOW". Now, the whole area of the window will be better
used. You can now see many of the tools that
Let's
start by invoking Editor from the Tools menu. Simply double click on the editor
icon to bring up an editor window.
Follow the instructions below to create a file, save it and view it in
the navigator window.
8. When the dialog box appears,
enter a new name for the object. Just hit return or the "OK" button
to accept the name. Notice how the name
was changed in the navigator window. You don't have to use the update window
command when Design Manager performs a task since Design Manager knows about
the task performed. The editor, however, was not a Design Manager command, but
an external program.
Now,
let's look at how the navigator window works. The bottom of the navigator
window has five buttons with arrows. These are described below:
·
The down arrow is used to
descend down a directory level. You first select a folder object, then this
arrow becomes ungrayed and you can descend into the object's path.
·
The up arrow is used to move
up a level from the current directory.
·
The right arrow is used to
show information about a file.
·
The left arrow moves you
back a level from the actions the right arrow initiates.
·
The four arrows button is
the go to button. By selecting this button, you may enter a path where you
would like to go to.
Let's
use the navigator's buttons to move around the system.
1. First, select your file if
it is not already selected. Note how the right
arrow becomes ungrayed.
2. Select the right arrow to view information about
the file. The window is empty. This is because a text file has no links in the
3. Move back by using the left arrow.
4. Move up to your home
directory by using the up arrow.
Notice how the contents of the navigator window now show your home directory. The folders are
subdirectories, and the plain rectangles are files that
5. Move back into the
You
now know how to navigate using Design Manager. You can also view parts of your
designs using the navigator, and you can do maintenance on your designs, such
as copying them, deleting them, and renaming them by using the pop-up menus as
discussed above. Select the appropriate operation and you will be prompted for
any additional information.