New Circuit Palette for Visual Thought

Introduction

A new palette is available for download here (circuit2.tar.Z 12kb) that contains symbols appropriate for most electrical and electronic circuits. This palette avoids the problem of connections that "jump" between terminals, as found in the circuit palette in the default distribution.

Details

The circuit palette provided with the default Visual Thought 1.2 distribution contains symbols that allow connections to jump from terminal to terminal, according to the geometrical relationship between a given symbol and its connections. The figure below shows an example of this behavior when the free endpoint of a connection to a PNP transistor is moved from left of the base to above the collector. The connection is drawn in varying shades of red to highlight its progress.

The new palette, circuit2.vpalette, forces connections made to its symbols to stick to their terminals. To use this feature, you must drag a connection endpoint directly on top of the the terminal to which you wish to connect. The figure below shows the behavior with the new version of the PNP transistor.

The techniques used in constructing this palette can be easily applied to other palettes, such as the logic palette, or to custom palettes.

Confluent, Inc. * 400 Spear Street, Suite 207 * San Francisco, CA 94105
800-780-2838 and 415-764-1000 tel * 415-764-1008 fax * info@confluent.com

Please send comments about this web site to: