Applicable Binary Rules

Binary Rules presented in the Applicable Rules dialog.

Summary

This dialog allows you to quickly access information about which binary design rules apply to the two chosen objects in the design workspace. Binary rules apply between two objects or between any object in one set to any object in a second set. As a consequence, binary design rules have two rule scopes.

Access

Access this dialog in one of the following ways:

• Select the two objects of interest then use the Applicable Binary Rules command from the right-click menu.
• Without any object selected, right-click in the workspace then use the Applicable Binary Rules command from the context menu. You will be prompted to select two objects in the design. Position the cursor over each object in turn then click or press Enter.

Options/Controls

• Binary Rules List - the main area of the dialog confirms the chosen design objects being 'interrogated', and lists all defined design rules, by rule type, that could be applied between those objects. The specific constraints for each rule are also displayed. Each rule will have either a tick () or a cross () next to it. A tick indicates that this is the rule with the highest priority out of all applicable rules of the same type, and is the rule currently applied. Lower priority rules of the same type are listed with a cross next to them, indicating that they are applicable but, as they are not the highest priority rule, they are not currently applied. Any rules that would apply to the objects but are currently disabled also have a cross next to them, and are shown using strike-through highlighting.
• Design Rules - this button becomes available when a rule entry is selected in the main list. Click it to access the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor dialog.

Tips

1. If, rather than seeing which rules apply between two objects, you would prefer to pick a rule and see which objects that rule applies to, this can be achieved from the PCB Rules And Violations panel. As you click on a specific rule in the Rules region of the panel, filtering will be applied, using the rule as the scope of the filter. Only those design objects that fall under the scope of the rule will be filtered, the visual result of which (in the main workspace) is determined by the highlighting options enabled (Mask/Dim/Normal, Select, Zoom).