Figure 1.1 shows a view of the Xic graphical user interface. There is generally a single large window present when Xic first starts. The window can be repositioned, and the size of the window can be adjusted through the window manager methods.
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Xic has ten drop-down menus, arrayed in a menu bar which extends across the top of the main application window.
File Menu | Commands to open, save, and list files and cells. This menu also contains the printer interface. |
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Edit Menu | Commands which are used to modify the current design. |
Modify Menu | Supplemental commands for layout modification. |
View Menu | Commands which affect the presentation of the current design, including the selection of physical and electrical (schematic) modes. |
Attributes Menu | Commands which affect the presentation of the design, such as the colors used. |
Convert Menu | Commands for importing and exporting designs to various non-native file formats. |
DRC Menu | Commands associated with design rule checking. |
Extract Menu | Commands associated with the extraction of electrical information and netlists from the physical layout, and layout versus schematic checking. |
User Menu | The script debugger, and the buttons that correspond to user-generated scripts. |
Help Menu | Documentation and the entry into the help system. |
In addition to the menu bar menus, Xic has a side menu of buttons, displayed along the left of the main window. These are generally used to create a specific type of feature, such as a rectangle. It is possible to start Xic so that the side menu is on the right, by setting the environment variable XIC_MENU_RIGHT.
The side menu is only visible when cell editing is possible.
If the mouse button is stationary over a menu button for a second or two, a ``tooltip'' will appear. This is a transient window that contains a sentence describing the function of the command. This also provides the internal name for the command. Every command has an internal name of five characters or fewer. This name can be used as a keyboard accelerator, and as back-door input to the help system with the !help keyboard command. The argument to this command is ``xic:'' followed by the command name, for example ``!help xic:prpty''.