Parts are instances derived from component objects. They cannot, however, be created from Tree Views. They have to be placed in the Canvas View of an existing assembly. When a Project Model is created, a TOP assembly is automatically created for you to add parts and links. The TOP assembly is a generic assembly object; it has no attribute defined but can collect all the parameters defined under it.
Creating a part is a simple procedure. You need to decide first which component object is to be used to create the part. Although link objects are component objects, they cannot be used to create parts. Links are used to connect parts together and transfer information from one part to the other. See the next section Connecting Parts with Links for more details. Assembly object Generic is a component object and, thus, can be used to create parts with subassemblies. The section Creating Subassemblies contains a description of how it can be done.
To select a component object in order to create parts, click on the Component tab in the Tree View. Click on the desired component object in the Tree View to select it. You can see the selection being displayed in the Object Toolbox. If you do not know what an Object Toolbox is, read the Starting SansGUI section of A Tour of SansGUI Examples in the Getting Started guide. If You cannot find the Object Toolbox, use View>Object Toolbox menu item to turn it on.
The Object Toolbox may be docked at one side of the SansGUI environment, or floating in the Windows environment. You can move or resize the Object Toolbox window to fit your need. To move the Object Toolbox, drag the window handle (when docked) or the window title bar (when floating). Double clicking on the window handle or the title bar will toggle between docked and floating. Resizing operation is similar to that of other windows.
The Object Toolbox has a current selection on the top and a latest selections section under it. The component object in the current selection is the one used to create subsequent parts. Clicking on an object in the latest selections will select that object into the current selection.
The Object Toolbox is global, which means that it is shared among all Project Models and Object Libraries in the SansGUI Environment. You can create parts from the component object selected from other Project Models or Object Libraries, provided that they are compatible in their definitions and versions. If the component object is not in the current Project Model, it will be added before a part is created. You can also use this mechanism to import sharable objects and classes. More on them can be found in Chapter 5 Managing Common Objects.
The maximum number of component objects stored in the Object Toolbox can be changed by Tuning the Environment Parameters, described in Chapter 7 Customizing SansGUI Environment.
Once the desired component object is selected in the Object Toolbox, you need to decide in which assembly you want to create the part. As described in the beginning of this section, there is a TOP assembly created for each Project Model. You can also put parts inside a subassembly, which will be described in the Creating Subassemblies section.
Each assembly is displayed with a Canvas View in the right pane. To create a part, click on the New Part button in the Build toolbar and then click on the location on the canvas where the part is to be created. You can create multiple parts from the same component object by clicking on different locations in the Canvas View. The parts are created on a grid and each grid point can be occupied with only one part.
The name of a part is a string of alpha-numeric characters and, possibly, with hyphens for clarity. Just like object names, all other characters will be turned into hyphens. Unlike object names, a part name can start with a digit. To change the name, double click on the part in the Canvas View or use the Properties menu item in the context menu to invoke the Part Properties dialog. Modify the name and click on the OK button to commit the change.
A new part is automatically assigned with a name, unique in the assembly, and a unique serial number in the Project Model. The initial name of a part is a number and an increasing-by-one series of numbers is used for subsequent parts. You can start a new series by changing a part's name to a new starting number. For example, after changing the name of a part to 600, the subsequent parts created will be named 601, 602, etc., provided that they are unambiguous in the same assembly. A non-numeric part name will be skipped in the name generation process.
The values of a part can be modified with a part value overriding mechanism. It is described in the Overriding Values section.
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SansGUI Modeling and Simulation Environment Version 1.2
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