4.4. Design-Entity Handling

Operation: Users can toggle between different modes for displaying the design hierarchy in the Design Window hierarchy tab (Design::Hierarchy). Selecting Main::View->Hierarchy... will open a sub-menu pop-up containing for entries corresponding to the four different display modes:

Operation: Users are allowed to select multiple design entities in the different tabs of the Design Window sidebar in order to subsequently apply design entity, refinement or exploration operations simultaneously to all selected entities. Entities in the sidebar tabs can be selected in several different ways:

1. Clicking on a row in the sidebar tabs of the Design Window will select the row and the corresponding entity. Holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse over multiple items will select all of them. If the user presses the Ctrl key when clicking on an item, the clicked item gets toggled and all other items are left untouched. And if the user presses the Shift key while clicking on an item, all items between the current item and the clicked item get selected or unselected, depending on the state of the clicked item.

2. Users can select all items in the currently active sidebar tab of the currently active Design Window by choosing Main::View->Select All. Conversely, all items in the currently active Design Window sidebar tab by choosing Main::View->Deselect All. Finally, choosing Main::View->Select Leaves will only select behaviors and/or channels in the tree/list that are of leaf type (i.e. that do no have child instances).

3. Users can search for and select entities in the currently active sidebar tab of the currently active Design Window by choosing Main::View->Find... The selection will pop-up the Find dialog in which user can choose a name to search for among the list of design entities. The Find dialog is displayed in Figure 4-13.

   In the Find dialog, users can enter a regular expression in the Text to find box. By default, only the list entity instance names will be searched and matched against the entered regular expression. However, the user can choose to search instance and/or type names via the corresponding Search by name and Search by type check boxes. Furthermore, through the Match case and Exact match search options check boxes users can select whether entity names are matched against the regular expression in a case-sensitive manner (default is case insensitive) and whether the regular expression has to match the whole entity name, i.e. whether the expression is anchored at the beginning and end of the entity name string (by default, matches against any substring will succeed, too).

   Finally, by clicking the Find button, searching and matching will be performed against the list of entities in the currently active Design Window sidebar tab. As a result, all matching entities will be selected. If users click Cancel button, then the action of searching will be cancelled. Either clicking Find or Cancel button will close the Find dialog.

   After performing a Main::View->Find.. operation, the first of the found and selected entities will become the active one (whose contents are being displayed in the View Pane). The user can then walk through the list of found and selected entities via the Main::View->Find Next and Main::View->Find Previous main menu entries. With each of these actions, the next or previous entity in the list of matching entities after a search will become the active. The view pane is updated accordingly and the sidebar tab is scrolled to make the entity visible.

Operation: In order to perform entity isolation, users first need to select the corresponding row in the Design::Hierarchy tab. Selecting Design::Hierarchy->Isolate context-menu command will then isolate the selected entity from other instances of the same type.

Error/Information Messages: If isolating the entity in the design leads to an error, an Error dialog with a corresponding error message will pop up and subsequently the operation will be aborted.

Operation: Users can wrap a design entity into an additional layer of behavior or channel hierarchy. In order to wrapping, users first need to select the corresponding row in the Design::Hierarchy, Design::Behaviors, or Design::Channels tabs. Selecting Design::Hierarchy->Wrap, Design::Behaviors->Wrap or Design::Channels->Wrap context-menu commands will then wrap the selected entity into an additional layer.

Error/Information Messages: If wrapping the entity leads to an error, an Error dialog with a corresponding error message will pop up and subsequently the operation will be aborted.

Operation: Users can delete unused design entities from the design. In order to do it, users first need to select the corresponding row in Design::Hierarchy, Design::Behaviors, or Design::Channels tabs. Selecting Design::Hierarchy->Delete, Design::Behaviors->Delete or Design::Channels->Delete context-menu commands will then delete the selected entity from the design.

Error/Information Messages: If deleting the entity in the design leads to an error (e.g. if the entity is used by another entity, i.e. if some part of the design depends on that entity), an Error dialog with a corresponding error message will pop up and subsequently the operation will be aborted.

Operation: The names of design entities including behaviors, behavior instances, channels, channel instances, variables, and ports are displayed in Name column of the Design Window tabs. Users can change these names of entities. In order to do it, users first select the corresponding row in Design::Hierarchy, Design::Behaviors or Design::Channels tabs. Selecting Design::Hierarchy->Rename, Design::Behaviors->Rename, or Design::Channels->Rename context-menu commands will then allow users to edit the names directly in the cell by opening a corresponding text edit box in place. Renaming can be aborted by pressing the Esc key. Pressing Enter accepts the newly entered name and renames the entity in the design.

Error/Information Messages: If renaming the entity in the design leads to an error (e.g. if an entity with the same name already exists), an Error dialog with a corresponding error message will pop up and subsequently the operation will be aborted.

Operation: Users can change the type of design entity instances including variable, channel and behavior instances that are displayed in the Type column of the Design Window hierarchy tab. In order to do it, users first need to select the corresponding row in the Design::Hierarchy tab. Selecting the Design::Hierarchy->Change Type context-menu command will then allow users to chose a type for the instance entity from a list of compatible types directly in the cell by opening a drop-down combo box with entries for all compatible types in place. Compatibility in SpecC is defined by a match in the list of port types and the list of implemented interfaces, e.g. two behaviors are compatible if they have the same list of ports in terms of order and type of ports. Users can choose any of the offered types from the drop-down list. Selecting a new type will then change the type of the instance entity in the design.

Error/Information Messages: If retyping of the entity in the design leads to an error, an Error dialog with a corresponding error message will pop up and subsequently the operation will be aborted.

Operation: Users first select the desired behavior by clicking its row in the Design::Hierarchy or Design::Behaviors tabs. Then, users set the selected behavior as the top-level behavior by selecting the Design::Hierarchy->Set As Top-Level or Design::Behaviors->Set As Top-Level commands in the context-menu for the respective behavior.

Error/Information Messages: All allocation information is stored in the design as annotations at the top-level design behavior (see Section 4.5.1, Section 4.6.1, etc.). When switching the top-level from one behavior to another, if an allocation exists at the current behavior, an Information dialog is popped up querying the user whether he wants to copy the existing allocation over to the new top-level behavior. If the user accepts the recommendation and if then an allocation already exists at the new top-level behavior, another Information dialog is popped up querying the user whether he wants to overwrite the allocation information at the new top-level behavior. If the user declines the recommendation, the previous allocation at the new top-level behavior is kept.

Operation: Users can import an existing design file on disk into a currently opened and loaded design. Importing a design will merge the design's contents into the currently opened design (equivalent to a SpecC import statement). All the design entities in the imported files can then be used in the current design. For example, in order to do plug-and-play of behaviors, users can replace a behavior in a design with an imported compatible behavior (see Section 4.4.7 for the Changing Type action).

Operation: Users can import design decisions from any currently opened and loaded design into the currently active design by selecting the main menu command Main::Synthesis->Import Decisions. As a result, the Import Decisions dialog will be popped up as shown in Figure 4-14.

Error/Information Messages: Decision importing requires reading and writing of annotations in the designs. In case of errors (e.g. wrong annotation format) upon pressing the Import button, an Error dialog will be popped up and the decision importing operation will be aborted.