13.15.13 Organizing Your Design on the Canvas

You may find it easier to create and navigate your SmartDesign if you organize and label the instances and busses on the Canvas.

You can show and hide nets, lock instances, rotate busses, group and ungroup pins, rename instances / groups / pins, and auto-arrange instances.

To organize your design:

  1. Click the Auto-Arrange button to automatically arrange instances on the Canvas. SmartDesign's auto-arrange feature optimizes instance location according to connections and instance size.
  2. Right-click any instance and choose Lock Location to fix the placement. Auto-Arrange will not move any instances that are locked.
  3. Click Auto-Arrange again to further organize any unlocked instances. Continue arranging and locking your instances until you are satisfied with the layout on the Canvas.

If your design becomes too cluttered:

  1. Hide the display of nets by de-selecting Canvas > Nets. This hides all the scalar and bus nets on your Canvas. You can also right-click a pin and choose Show Net (or Hide Net) to show/hide individual nets. Note that selecting a pin will make the corresponding net temporarily visible.
  2. Group your pins. It may help to group pins that are functionally similar, or to group pins that are already connected or will be unused in your design.

To further customize your design's appearance:

  1. Double-click the names of instances to add custom names. For example, it may be useful to rename an instance based on a value you have set in the instance: the purpose of an instance named 'array_adder_bus_width_5' is easier to remember than 'array_adder_0'.
  2. Right-click any bus and choose Shape > Rotate Left or Right to change the bus orientation (horizontal or vertical). Click and drag the bus to a new location and lock, if necessary.