There are three kinds of objects in a Project Model: Component, Reference, and Simulation Control. In the SansGUI user interface, they are displayed in Tree Views in the Left Pane. In the Project Model, they are sorted into Object, Component, and Assembly tabbed folders.
The Object folder contains all simulation control, unit, and reference objects.
The Component folder contains all component objects with their derived parts and links.
The Assembly folder contains all parts and links in the assembly hierarchy.
We use the first two folders to create and maintain objects. Each object in the Tree View is represented by an icon inherited from the deriving class and a name unique within the class. An object name can contain any alpha-numeric characters and hyphens with the first character being an alphabet letter. All the other characters will be turned into hyphens after the name is entered. The name string is case-sensitive, which means MyObject will be different from myObject. However, doing so for two distinct objects is not recommended. In addition, SansGUI provides users with a visual cue by putting a small light blue masking square at the lower left corner of each object's icon.
To create a new object, move the mouse pointer to the class (no masking square in the icon) from which the object is to be created and right click on either the class icon or its name. You will see a context menu with a Create/Clone Object command item in it. Click to select the Create/Clone Object command. An Object Properties dialog with a blank Object Name field will be displayed for the creation of the new object. Enter a unique object name within the class. SansGUI shows an error message whenever an ambiguous object name is entered.
You can create a new object with its original values copied from an existing object of the same class. To do this, simply right click on the old object to obtain the context menu and click on the Create/Clone Object command item. An Object Properties dialog with a blank Object Name field will be displayed with the value fields filled with those from the original object. Enter a unique object name within the class.
You can commit the creation of the new object by clicking on the OK button in the Object Properties dialog. You may also go to the next section on Entering Values before clicking on the OK button to close the Object Properties dialog. The Object Properties dialog is non-modal, meaning that you don't need to close it before moving onto other tasks in the SansGUI environment. For example, you can open another Object Properties dialog by double clicking on some existing object or selecting Properties... from the object's context menu, using the right mouse button.
If an object is no longer needed, it can be deleted by right clicking on the object name or its icon in the Tree View and then selecting Delete from the context menu. The Delete operation is available to a component object only when there is no part or link derived from it.
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SansGUI Modeling and Simulation Environment Version 1.2
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