Menu: Tools --> Wire

The wire drawing tool draws a thin wire to denote connections between pins.

Wires may be drawn at any angle (useful for power supply diodes) but the most convenient mode is when they are drawn vertically or horizontally.  Netnames can be applied to wires and these will be dragged as the wire is moved.

If the shift key is held then wires are kept to right angles.

For a single net any number of netnames can be applied but they must all have the same name.  The netlister will throw errors if they do not.  Note that if no netname is used then the netlister chooses a unique netname (which may not be the same on the next netlist run).  If a netname is applied to the net then it will always have the same name.

Orthogonal wire drag

When wires are drawn horizontally and vertically then orthogonal wire drag applies.  This is simply a means of making the tool easier to use and requires less effort to drag parts around the schematic.

The diagram below shows the actions for orthogonal drag when a part is moved to the right and up.

Note that the original connection points are kept the same and wires are extended or added to keep connections maintained to the box.  Also netnames attached to wires are moved with the wire.

The next diagram shows the same part when moved in the same way but with orthogonal drag turned off (note in this case selection must be done by drawing a bounding box around the item to be selected - the rectangle).

Although the original connections are maintained no netnames are moved and the layout looks messy i.e. there is more work for the user to tidy up the schematic.

For slow systems it may be necessary to turn off orthogonal drag as a lot of processing is required for the algorithm.  The editor can still be used but requires more work.

Note that orthogonal wire drag can be turned on or of from Menu: Edit-->Options-->System.

The thickness of wires is controlled from Edit-->Options-->Schematic-->Wire/Pin width.