selecting objects in multisim

[haklesup]

I was going along happliy creating a schematic but then after a couple of copy and pastes suddenly many of the components were being selected in a very strange way.  Instead of the usual blue box around the componment I just clicked on, I get a very large selection box that encloses a bunch of components and trails off the side of the sheet on to infinity.  This behaviour also occurs when components are individually selected with the spreadsheet view. 

Not just the last couple cut and pastes were bad but all of the objects  I placed today many of which seemed fine moments before the bug bit.  Objects I placed yesterday and on other sheets I didn't work on today seem unaffected, that is I can select things one by one.

I tried closing the program and restarting, no luck.  I tried "Save As" to another file name but same bug in that file also.  I suppose I can try to salvage what I can with cut and paste to a new sheet and then redraw from scratch what I did today but I was hoping there was a better way than to loose a couple hours to file corruption  bug.

Any Advice on how to recover this file.  I'm using the latest version of MultiSim.  I've deleted most of my pages and attached the buggy one here.  The effected components are on the right hand side of the sheet.  I'll work on another sheet for now.

[nestor-sg]

I can't figure out what got you into this Multisim behavior, but what I can easily see is that what's causing it is that you have labels (and a couple of components) way beyond the boundary of the sheet. Especially having the component symbol inside the sheet, but the label way far beyond the sheet boundaries create this huge selection box.

There are several ways you could fix this... the most effective ones in my opinion would be:

1. With the mouse, click outside the sheet boundaries and every time you get a huge selection box, delete it. This will obviously delete the corresponding or associated component with that box, so you'll need to add it back.

2. Same way, but instead of deleting them, try dragging the box into the sheet, after doing this you'll notice very tiny labels or components approaching the sheet (you are as zoom-out as possible for this). However, still with this option something is weird with the components.

3. The other option is yes, copy/paste components into a new sheet.

In order to avoid this, make sure that when you are going to copy a component you select the symbol of the component, and not just only the label, RefDes, or any attribute. On either case, the way I would suggest you to copy components is to use the In-Use List, you find it usually in the top-right corner of your toolbar section.

[lacy]

I can at least confirm the behavior that is being witnessed, but I really don't know what would be causing this or how to go about correcting.

I will let Nestor or one of the other Group members answer this one. It would have to be a software error and nothing that you possibly could have done (at least this is my opinion).

Sorry I haven't been much help, but this is an area that I am not really qualified to speculate on since it may be software related.

[haklesup]

Nestor, that helps.  I can see now that my RefDes is way offset from the components causing the large selection boxes.  But I am not sure how it got that way.  I had RefDes or netnames turned off for a while but they still should have stayed with the component when moved.  I tried the in use list but the component has the same offset RefDes but placing a new same component on a different sheet has no problem.  So a little mystry as to why but not to what anymore.

I can double click on each component and use the "reset test position" to fix it but is there a way to do that globally or to a group of selected components.  Update curcuit components in the tools menu did not fix it.  If not, it's pretty repetative, I can delete most, fix one sub ckt and copy them out again

Next time I will not turn off any text while copying (via visibility tab on toolbox window)

[haklesup]

I was making small circuit scraps then copying and pasting into an array.  I must have grabbed some text while moving some adjascent components (sloppy rubber band box at low zoom mag) then subsiquently moved and copied the scrap further moving the offset refdes and duplicating the error.  Meanwhile turning off most of the text so I could get a clear view masked it from me until I was done with all the copies.

at least that makes sense.  Now, a global text position reset?

Message Edited by haklesup on 09-18-2007 06:30 PM

[lacy]

I have looked for a global way of doing this and I have not found one. I am not say it isn't possible, just that I can't find one. I did go through your circuit and change these for you, but I seem to be have a little trouble posting it (probably my internet connection is wonky tonight).

If you want you can e-mail at lacy@cwv.net and I will e-mail it to you.

Have a Nice Day

[haklesup]

Don't worry about it.  Once I understood what went wrong it was easy to fix and move on.

[GarretF]

Hi haklesup/lacy:

I though you might wish to know that while there is no "global reset text position," you can reset the text position of individual components.

To reset the test position, open the component's properties (double click), select the Display tab, then click Reset Text Position.

[lacy]

Thanks Garrett. This may be something that may be worthy of adding to any Feature Request List that you have.

[haklesup]

OK, I fixed the text labels and now I want to move the BUS lines to make room for more components.  Referencing the same schematic, you will see that the Bus as I initially drew it has diagonal corners.  When I select the bus, I get little blue handles on all the verticies and I can grab the horizontal and vertical segments of the bus to move them but try as I might, I cannot move or eliminate the diagonal portions of the bus without deleting the entire bus line and redrawing it and remaking all of the connections to it.  I even tried drawing another bus segment to short circuit the unwanted graphical portions but it would only connect at one end, no luck with that attempt.

Should I be able to move the bus diagonal lines?  I get an arrow cursor when I hover over the handles but clicking and dragging does not move the vertex.  That's why I have that funny jog near R144 but it is the bottom U shaped part I desire to move.