Window Controls

Specifies window controls, which are settings that affect the position and appearance of windows in the Virtuoso user interface.

Place Manually

Controls the window placement.

• When turned off, places graphics windows and text windows by default in the horizontal center of the screen, slightly above the vertical center, in a size and shape determined by the Cadence software.
• When turned on, it determines the position, size, and shape of windows. You place a window by clicking to place one corner of the window, dragging the cursor to the opposite corner, and releasing the button when the window is the size and shape you want. The command does not affect text editor windows.

Create New Window When Descending

Controls the type of view displayed when you go up and down the design hierarchy. Not all applications make use of this feature.

• When turned off, continues to display the original view type.
• When turned on, displays another window with the new view type.

Scroll Bars

Controls the visibility of scroll bars.

• When turned off, creates new graphics windows without scroll bars.
• When turned on, creates new graphics windows with scroll bars on the right and bottom edges. Existing windows are not affected.

Tear-Off Menus

Controls whether future menus have tear-off handles.

• When turned off, future menus have tear-off handles.
• When turned on, future menus do not have tear-off handles.

Menu Shortcuts

Controls whether menu shortcuts are available.

• When checked, you can type Alt together with the underlined character for a menu (such as the F for the File menu in the CIW) to access that menu, and you can type the underlined character on a menu item (such as the O in Open on the File menu) to access that item.
• When not checked, you cannot access menus or menu items using keyboard shortcuts.

Mouse Prompts

Controls whether and where mouse prompts appear.

• Top if you want mouse prompts to appear along the top edge of each new window.
• Bottom if you want mouse prompts to appear along the bottom edge of each new window.
• None if you do not want the mouse prompts to appear at all.

The Mouse Prompts preferences are overridden by any applied workspace regardless of the selected position. Also, if the mouse prompts are set to None before the window is created, then the mouse prompts (containing the mouse bindings line) do not appear even if a workspace has the designated mouse prompts location.

Focus Policy

Selects the focus policy if the pointer remains in a session window canvas for a specific period of time.

• Click to click in the session window or the dockable window to be in focus.
• CanvasDelay if you want a session window canvas to be in focus if the pointer remains in it for a specific period of time. This is also the default focus policy.
• CanvasAsstDelay if you want both the docked assistant windows or the canvas to get focus when the pointer remains in either for a specific period of time.

In Virtuoso, the focus policy applies only to docked assistants and does not apply to floating dockable windows since that is controlled by window manager options.

Focus Delay

Sets the specific period of time for which the pointer must remain in a session window canvas to get focus.

The default value is 200 milliseconds, which is 1/5 of a second.

Default Editor Background Color

Changes the background color of the editor window. On clicking this option, the Select Color window displays, from where you can choose the required color.

Default: Black

Side Dock Tabs

Selects the display of the current tabs.

• Bottom if you want the tabs for multiple assistants, which are open at the same time, to appear at the bottom of a session window.
• Side if you want the tabs for multiple assistants, which are open at the same time, to appear on the side,

Command Controls

Controls the Option forms and the mouse.

Infix (No Click is necessary for first point)

Controls mouse behavior in design windows.

• When turned off, prompts for the starting point of a line or shape.
• When turned on, uses the point at which you use a pop-up menu as the first data point in any command you choose from the pop-up menu.

Infix and Options Displayed When Commands Start should not be used together in a GNOME window manager environment unless the mouse focus setting is set to be focus under mouse or focus strictly under mouse.

Options Displayed When Commands Start

Controls the behavior of options forms.

• When turned off, does not display an options form for changing command settings. Press F3 to see the options form.
• When turned on, displays an options form when you select a command or reach a stage in a command where you might need to change the settings.

Undo Limit

Specifies how many commands you can undo with the Undo command. Undo undoes the most recent commands in reverse of the order in which they were used. You can select a limit of 0 or 128. A value of 0 disables undo.

Nest Limit

Specifies how many levels of commands can be nested. You can select a limit from 1 to 20 commands using the up and down arrows in the spin box.

Double Click Time

Sets the interval (in milliseconds) in which two mouse clicks are interpreted as a double-click. You can select intervals from 200 to 1000 milliseconds by dragging the slider.

Beep Volume

Sets the volume of the beep used in the Cadence software. You can select intervals from -100 to +100 by dragging the slider.

For systems that do not support volume control, any setting from -99 to 100 turns on the beep sound.

Web Browser

Specifies a browser executable. The directory where the executable is must be in your path. The default is firefox.

CIW Controls

Controls the appearance and configuration of the Command Interpreter Window.

Output History

Specifies the maximum number of commands contained in the output log. If you specify a number that is smaller than the current setting, the program truncates the contents of the output log. The minimum valid value for this setting is 100.

Input Buffer Lines

Specifies the number of previous commands that appear in the input area.

Input Area Lines

Specifies the initial number of lines (size) of the input area, limited to the available space in the window. If you specify more lines than are available in the window, the program makes additional space available to allocate to the input area by hiding the output history area.

Additionally, the height of the CIW also get modified when the number of input area lines is increased to the point where the CIW is not of a sufficient size to accommodate the changed setting.

Environment variable: ciwCmdInputLines

Output Wrap Mode

Wraps the messages in the CIW.

• None if you do not want to wrap any messages that appear in the CIW. This is also the default value.
• Word if you want to wrap a message between words. This means that words longer than the width of CIW is going to appear in the next line and a horizontal scroll bar is displayed
• Anywhere if you want to wrap a message between characters. This means that words longer than the width of CIW is going to appear broken and a horizontal scroll bar get displayed
• Word or Anywhere if you prefer wrapping between words but in case a word is wider than the CIW, then the messages are going to get wrapped between characters. Therefore, in this case a horizontal scroll bar get displayed.

Retain Unique Command

Removes identical commands from the input area of the CIW. By default, it is set to nil.

Output Area Lines

Specifies the maximum number of lines contained in the output area.

If you specify a number that is smaller than the current setting, the program truncates the number of lines contained in the output area.The User Preferences form closes. Your settings are applied only to this session.

The minimum valid value for this setting is 100.

Syntax Highlighting

Enables checking the syntax or commands entered in the input area of the CIW. By default, this check box appears selected.

Separate commands appear with alternating white and gray background colors. Incorrect or incomplete commands are indicated with light yellow or light gray-yellow background colors, respectively.

For more information, see Running SKILL Commands.

History In Place

Accesses history commands within the edit area of the input area, the edit area is the bottom portion of the input area below the last displayed history line, using the navigation keys. If the check box is not selected, the up arrow key traverses into the displayed history buffer within the input area. If the check box is selected, you can still traverse into the displayed history buffer by using the left arrow key or by clicking into the area above the edit area.

The CIW built-in history is different from using the history() command. The built-in history only displays typed-in commands, whereas, the history() command also lists accelerated commands, those commands that were run by selecting menus or using bindkeys.

For information about the history command, see history().

Tab Stop

Specifies the number of character spaces that is going to represent a tab in both, the input and output areas of the CIW.

Syntax Highlighting

Uses any of the following key combinations: Shift+Return, Shift+Enter, Ctrl+J, or Ctrl+M to enter a newline when the Enter Key Executes Command check box appears selected.

When the Syntax Highlighting check box is not selected, all of the key combinations execute the command block, that is, send the command block to the SKILL parser. This is because if the commands are not complete, they are not going to be executed by the SKILL parser until SKILL receives the remainder of the commands.

Enter Key Executes Command

Specifies whether or not you can press Enter to execute the command typed on the input line.

When turned on, you can press Enter to execute the command typed on the input line.

The command block that contains the cursor gets executed regardless of the position of the cursor within that block. In the following example, ^ marks the position of the cursor when you press Enter:

foreach(term dbGetNetParent printf("%s\n" term->name())) 
                           ^

The program evaluates and executes the entire command block.

When turned off, you must place the cursor at the end of the input line and press Enter to execute the command.

The settings of the Enter Key Executes Command only apply if the Syntax Highlighting check box is selected. For more information, see Running SKILL Commands.

Raise CIW on

Specifies whether the CIW should be raised to the front when a Warning and an Error has been displayed in the log window. The default is to not display the CIW in either of these situations.

Environment variables: raiseCIWonError and raiseCIWonWarning

Dashboard Controls

Controls the display of license activity indicators.

Display Dashboard Indicators

Specifies whether or not to display dashboard indicator information, related to resource license activity.

License Activity

Specifies where dashboard controls are displayed, either in the CIW, the CIW+Session windows, or that they are Hidden.