custom keyboard macros

All,
I just moved to a new company using cadence to do IC layout. At my old
company, we used internal tools that allowed customization of keyboard
macros which greatly helped efficiency. Is there any way to do this in
cadence.

Thanks!
Dave

 

Absolutely. You can customize the bindkeys using SKILL (see sample files in
<instdir>/tools/dfII/samples/local), and you can use the SKILL programming
language to do pretty much anything you want. There's an extremely wide-ranging
API (over 5000 documented SKILL functions).

So the answer is yes, it can be done. You'll probably want to read some of the
documentation (type "cdsdoc", or hit the Help menu in a DFII window).

That said, I'm assuming you're using the Virtuoso Layout editor - you didn't
say. Cadence provide a lot of different tools, so you might have been talking
about automated place and route (encounter) or some other tool.

Andrew.

 

David,

hiSetBindKey() and hiSetBindKeys() are the Skill functions that allow
the user to customize the SKILL language expressions that get executed
for a particular key stroke.

eg.
hiSetBindKey("Layout" "<Key>9" "leHiMarkNet()")

You can put these commands in a file called .cdsinit in your home
directory. .cdsinit is like .cshrc, it gets loaded every time you invoke
cadence.

SKILL language user guide and functions reference documents might be of
help to you. These documents could be accessed through the 'cdsdoc'
executable.

regards,
Suresh

 

Andrew:

Can I add bindkeys to THE LSW window.

Specifically I hate the fact that the shifted mouse clicks do not do
the same default operation as
the unshifted ones ...This is most annoying ...

-- Gerry Vandevalk

 

No, you can't have bindkeys for the LSW.

Sorry!

Andrew.

 

Could Cadence change the default of the shifted mouse clicks over the
LSW to be the same as the unshifted ones?

The left mouse mouse click is the same (( i.e select layer) whether
shifted or not, but the center and right clicks only
function when unshifted, and not shifted ... most #W^^&*&%@#$$%
annoying ...

-- Gerry