FAQs:
Who can I contact for help with the CDK or other Cadence questions?
This FAQ is definitely the right place to start, but if your question isn't answered here, ask your TA; if you're not in a class, send email to cadence_help@ncsu.edu. Non-NCSU users should consult their local FAQ, Cadence admin or sysadmin before contacting the NCSU Cadence help team. (We're always happy to help any and all off-site CDK users, but your local Cadence admin will have a better grasp of the particulars of your Cadence setup.)
Is there any online documentation for the Cadence tools?
Yes! To start the Cadence online documentation, simply type
openbook
at any shell prompt.
OK, I did that, but Openbook didn't start. Now what?
One possibility is that your display is not set to 8 bits per pixel. This shouldn't be an issue for workstations in the public labs at NCSU, but it may be an issue if you're exporting the display back to your home or dorm machine. (We've seen Openbook work just fine on higher-depth displays, however.)
And of course, sometimes Openbook is just slow. During a normal Openbook startup, you should see something like the following go by in the shell window:
starting viewer ...If you see all that, and Openbook hasn't started yet, try typing
openbook
in the same shell window. This seems to, for lack of a better term, ``wake up'' Openbook and get it going.
When Openbook starts, it opens to the ``IC 4.4.5 Product Documentation'' menu. Are there other products? How do I access their documentation?
Yes, there are several other product families. (Cadence calls them STREAMS.) To access the other ``document hierarchies'', do the following:
Note that the documentation for the new signalscan waveform viewer is in the ``LDV 3.0'' hierarchy.
When openbook starts, it asks me if it can update my .openbookrc file, and if it can change permissions on a couple of directories. What's going on?
Your .openbookrc file needs to contain information on where all the ``document hierarchies'' live. The openbook startup program checks to make sure that your .openbookrc file contains the correct paths, and tries to fix them if they're out of date.
The permissions-change request is related to the Library Manager crash issue. In a nutshell, unless the AFS ``k'' (file locking) permission bit is set for ``system:authuser'' for a couple of openbook-related directories in your home directory, Openbook will crash when you try to do a global search of the documentation. (See the above link for more information on what we think the problem is.)
Does the CDK include any tutorials?
No, but some other folks have constructed tutorials based on the CDK and made them available on the Web:
The NCSU CDK is © NC State University, 1998-2000. Users are free to use or modify the NCSU CDK as appropriate as long as this notice appears in it. You are also advised that you use the NCSU CDK at your own risk. By using the NCSU CDK, you assume all liability for any resulting errors and problems.