An Intuitive Front-End to Effective and Efficient Schematic Capture Design

Introduction

In our previous publication (“Scholar: An Enhanced Multi-Platform Schematic Capture”, Simulation Standard, Vol.10, Number 9, September 1999) we presented the main features of a new-generation schematic capture tool – Silvaco’s Scholar. In this article we are going to describe and analyze the graphical user interface (GUI) of Scholar.

The GUI is a very important part of any software tool, especially if this tool is for making some interactive manipulations. That is the case for any schematic editor. Scholar provides the user with an intuitive, highly effective GUI that makes the schematic design process a very easy and comfortable task (Figure 1 demonstrates a typical screen while using Scholar).

Before dipping into the details of Scholar’s GUI, some basic concepts of Scholar as a schematic capture tool will be presented. Then, the principles of Scholar’s GUI, followed by the description of the main elements of the GUI are described. The user interface of operations for both creating and editing the schematic elements is analyzed in two separate sections. Finally, the aspects of Scholar’s GUI customization are considered.