Projects

Parent page: Panels

Two projects open in the Projects Panel. One schematic is selected and its VCS status shown in the lower panel section.

Summary

The Projects panel displays all projects that are currently open, along with their constituent documents and the VCS Revision status of the active document. Any open documents that have not been created as part of a project or added to an existing open project will also be listed.

Panel Access

To open the Projects panel, click the System button  at the bottom-right of Altium Designer, and select the Projects entry from the pop-up menu

Panels can be configured to be floating in the editor space or docked to sides of the screen. If the Projects panel is currently in the group of docked Workspace panels on the left, use the Projects tab located at the bottom of the panels to bring it to the front.

Project Documents Tree

As you open an existing project or create a new one, an entry for it will appear in the Projects panel. Any existing documents that are part of a project and any new ones that have be added will appear under sub-folders, according to their purpose and/or type. For example, the following common folders and content document types can appear under a project:

• Source Documents - core design documents such as schematics, PCBs, etc.
• Libraries - source library documents for a project. Documents are further sub-divided based on library type (e.g. schematic libraries, PCB libraries, etc).
• Generated - documents generated as output. Documents are further sub-divided based on type (e.g. BOM documents, ERC Report documents, text documents, etc). As project output is generated, the corresponding sub-folders in the main tree will be created and become populated.

Any documents that are opened independently of a project will appear as Free Documents. Again, depending on the document type, free documents will appear under corresponding sub-folders.

As well as allowing multiple documents to be open for editing, the environment also supports multiple projects being open at the same time. These could be unrelated projects, or they could be related projects.

Active vs Focused

In the main tree, the active project is highlighted using the Windows Active Title Bar color for your system. When there are no documents open in the design editor window, a project is made active by selecting it from a list of all currently open (loaded) projects in the panel. As soon as a project document is opened, the parent project of that document automatically becomes the active project.

The active document in the design editor window will also be highlighted in the panel, using the Windows Selected Items color for your system.

With numerous documents open in the design editor window, changing the active document using editor's document tabs will cause the Projects panel to update accordingly, to reflect both the active document and the active project (if the document you make active does not reside in the same project as the previously active document). Conversely, clicking on the entry for a document that is already open (and which belongs to a non-active project) will make the parent project of that document the active project.

Only one project and document may be active at any given time, however the panel allows you to focus and perform actions on any project or document. Right-clicking on the entry for a non-active project or a non-active document, will bring up a menu with commands targeting that focused project or focused document, respectively - see the Right Click Options later in this document.

In the case of focusing a document, the document will only become focused if it is closed or hidden, otherwise it will become the active document and its parent project will become the active project. For example, in the image below the active project is Universal JTAG Interface.PrjPcb and the active document is Universal JTAG Interface.PcbDoc. The focused document is Headphone.SchDoc (distinguished in the panel by a dotted outline box) from the inactive Mixer.PrjPcb project.

Projects Panel Display Options

Various display options can be defined with respect to the panel. The default display mode is to show project documents grouped into separate display folders, such as Source Documents, Libraries, and so on. All Projects panel display options can be defined on the System - Projects Panel page of the Preferences dialog.

For more details on the Projects panel display options see the WorkspaceManager_Dlg-SysPrefsForm_ProjectPanel((System - Projects Panel)) page.

Document Display Icons

As part of the General panel options (previous section), you can enable (the default setting) and disable the display of document icons that indicate the open/modified and Version Control status. This provides a quick visual summary, allowing you to see which documents are modified, which are hidden and, in the case of version control, which documents are added, modified, in conflict, etc.

The document icons used are listed below. The entry in brackets shows the textual confirmation that appears when hovering the cursor over the icon.

Open/Modified Status Icons

(Open)	The document is open as a tabbed document in the design editor window.
(Hidden)	The document is hidden.
(Open/Modified)	The document is open and has been modified (yet to be saved).
(Modified)	This icon appears next to the main project document only, to show that the project has been modified (yet to be saved).

A closed document is represented by no icon.

Version Control Status Icons

If the Show VCS Status is enabled in the Projects Panel Preferences, then the current VCS status of each file that is under version control is displayed next to the file's name in the Projects panel.

The status icons for both CVS and Subversion are as follows:

[blank]	Version control disabled.
[blank]	Not in version control - file has not been added to the VCS.
	No modification - The file is checked in to the repository, and your local copy is up to date.
	Out of date - The file is checked in (committed) to the repository, but your local copy is out of date. Use the Update option to bring your local copy up to date.
	Modified - the checked out file is locally modified by you. Save the file and commit the file to the repository.
	Conflict - the file has been committed by some one else before you had a chance to commit this file.
	Missing - the file is present in the repository but not in your working folder.

Right-Click Menus

Project file

Right-clicking on a Project file in the Projects panel provides access to additional options and commands via a pop-up menu.

Those of particular note include:

• Compile PCB Project - The compiling process detects electrical and drafting violations, and is integral to producing a valid netlist for a project.
• Show Differences - detect and resolve the difference between two design files.
• Version Control - This option opens a secondary menu with commands to add, commit, update, lock and compare project revisions stored in the version control system.
  
   
• Local History - View and compare time-stamped, local backup versions of the project documents.
  
   
• Project Options - Opens the Options dialog for this project. Set configurations for error and differences warnings, ECO generation, file paths, etc that override the installation defaults.

Document file

Right-clicking on a Document file in the Projects panel provides access to a pop-up menu offering a range of document-specific options and commands.

The Compile, Show Differences, Version Control, Local History options are as for right-clicking on a Project, covered above. Other commands provide the ability to hide, close or explore (open the containing folder) individual documents within the project. The remaining options are largely self-explanatory and match those available via main menu system - for example, the File menu and the File » Print menu.

Notes

• With no project documents open in the design editor window, opening an additional project will automatically make it the active project in the panel.
• A free document can be added into a project. Conversely, a project document can be removed from that project. If it is open in the design editor window it will be removed from its parent project but remain open in the panel as a free document. If however, it is not currently open in the design editor window, removal will effectively close it.
• A modified document or project that has yet to be saved is also distinguished by an asterisk next to its entry in the panel. Modified documents are also indicated by an asterisk inside their tab in the design editor window.
• The panel supports drag and drop, meaning that you can open a project (add it to the panel) or an individual document, by dragging it from a Windows folder and dropping it onto the panel.
• You can transfer documents between projects in the panel by clicking and dragging. You do not have to drag the document to the correct sub-folder - it will be placed correctly within the project structure automatically.
• Documents can be hidden in order to prevent clutter in the tabbed area of the design editor window. When a document is hidden, it is still open from the point of view of processes such as compilation/synchronization/annotation, It is just not displayed as a tabbed-document in the design editor window.
• The keyboard shortcuts Up Arrow, HOME, END and Down Arrow, can be used to display the previous, first, last and next entry in the panel, respectively. Use the Right Arrow and Left Arrow keys to expand and collapse a top-level entry or sub-folder therein, respectively.