Projects & Desktops

A big build eventually needs a bench beside it. You want to work out a clock module, an address decoder, or a memory map without doing it in the middle of everything else — and then drop the finished thing into the main design.

That's what a project is for. A project is a workspace holding several desktops, shown as tabs above the desk. Each desktop is a complete desk of its own — its own boards, chips, wiring, camera position, and undo history — and a design worked out on one can be copied straight onto another.

The project is the document. One .chiphippo file holds all of it: every desktop, and the contents of every ROM you programmed. That's the whole design in a single file you can email, drop in a repo, or carry to another machine. There are no companion files to keep together and nothing to go missing.

Every desktop is the same. There is no special "main" desk and no lesser one: they are peers, all with the same menu, and which is the build and which is the bench is entirely up to you. Any of them can be renamed, duplicated, or deleted — the only rule is that a project always keeps at least one.

There is always a project open. From the first launch, the desk you are looking at is a desktop of one — a brand-new project with no name, no home of its own, and a single desktop called Desktop 1. Nothing has to be created before you can start building, and nothing has to be named before you can add a second desktop.

Adding desktops

Just press + at the end of the tab strip. It asks you nothing: a new empty desktop appears beside the others, named Desktop 2, Desktop 3, and so on, and you land on it.

Right-click the + for the other way one arrives:

• New Desktop — the same thing the plain click does.
• Import Desktop… — one read in from a file (see Moving a desktop between projects below).

Either way it's an addition, and nothing already there is touched.

The Desktop menu has the same two plus the rest, acting on the desktop you're looking at:

• New Desktop — the same thing as pressing +.
• Duplicate Desktop — a copy of this desk, landing right beside it. The copy is brand-new hardware: a ROM on it gets its own backing file, so programming the copy never touches the original.
• Import Desktop… — read a .desktop.chiphippo (or a loose .chiphippo design) in as a new desktop. See Moving a desktop between projects below.
• Export Desktop… — write this desktop out as a self-contained file.
• Desktop Properties… — its Name and Description.
• Delete Desktop — remove it from the project.

Adding, renaming, duplicating and deleting a desktop are ordinary unsaved changes, exactly like moving a chip: nothing is written to disk until you save the project, and closing without saving undoes all of it.

Saving

The File menu is the project's, because the project is the only document there is:

• New Project (Cmd/Ctrl+N) — a blank slate: a fresh unnamed project holding one new, empty desktop. However many desktops you had, a new project always starts as a single one, numbered from Desktop 1 again.
• Open… (Cmd/Ctrl+O) — pick a .chiphippo project to open.
• Open Recent — the last ten projects you saved or opened, most recent first.
• Save (Cmd/Ctrl+S) — write the project to its file.
• Save As… (Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+S) — write it to a new one.
• Project Properties… — the project's Name, Description, and the read-only Location of its file (blank until it has been saved).

The toolbar's four file buttons are the same four actions, and the window title's • means the project has changes you haven't saved.

You never have to choose a file. A project that has never been given a home lives in Chip Hippo's own working slot, and Cmd/Ctrl+S writes it there with no dialog at all — design something, save it, quit, and it's there when you come back. Save As… is what gives the project a real file when you want one; it takes the project's name from the file you pick, so there's no separate "name this project" step. From then on Save just writes that file and moves it to the top of the recent list.

Changing projects

New Project and Open… both replace what's open, so nothing is allowed to go with it unasked:

• A project that has never been given a home is always asked about, whether or not anything in it is unsaved. It lives in Chip Hippo's one working slot, the project taking its place is about to claim that slot, and there is nowhere else for it to go — so replacing it loses it either way, and even a Cmd/Ctrl+S into the slot doesn't change that. You're offered save (which gives it a file of its own), discard, or cancel.
• A saved project has a file nothing is claiming, so it's only asked about when it has changes: save, discard, or cancel.

Choose to save and it goes through, then the action you asked for carries on — you're never made to ask twice. Cancel, at that dialog or at a dialog behind it, and nothing happens at all.

Working across tabs

Click a tab to put that desktop on the desk. Everything follows the active tab:

• Undo/redo is per desktop. Switch away and back, and Cmd/Ctrl+Z still undoes that desk's last edit, not the other one's.
• Each desktop remembers where you were — its camera position comes back with it. Panning and zooming are never counted as changes to the design.
• The simulation stops when you switch. A running circuit belongs to the desk it's running on, so the transport resets rather than following you to another desktop. Any open pin-assignment or memory-inspector windows close for the same reason: they were pointing at chips on the desk you just left.

Tabs carry no marker of their own. There is one save and one dirty marker, because there is one document: the window title shows the project — Untitled until you name it — the active desktop, and a leading • if anything anywhere in the project is unsaved.

Managing tabs

Right-click a tab for its menu:

• Properties… opens the same dialog every part, board, and wire has, with the same two fields — a Name, which is what the tab reads, and a Description, a note on what this bench is for. Hover the tab to see the description.
• Duplicate Desktop copies it, landing the copy right beside it.
• Export Desktop… writes it out on its own (below).
• Delete Desktop removes it from the project. Any desktop can go — there's nothing special about the first one — except the last one left, because a project with no desktops would have nothing to open. Its design goes with it, but nothing is written: close the project without saving and it comes back.

Desktop numbers only ever count up: deleting Desktop 2 doesn't make the next one Desktop 2 again, so a name you wrote in a note keeps meaning the same bench. Rename them to whatever the benches actually are — CPU, Clock, Decoder — through Properties…

Moving a desktop between projects

Since a desktop isn't a file, moving one somewhere else is a snapshot:

• Desktop ▸ Export Desktop… writes the desk to a .desktop.chiphippo file — its boards, parts and wiring, plus the contents of any ROM on it. The file is self-contained and has no link back: it is a copy, and nothing you do to the project afterwards changes it.
• Import Desktop… — on the Desktop menu, and by right-clicking the tab strip's + — reads one back as a new desktop, keeping the name it was exported under. Import is always an addition, so no file operation can ever replace the desk you're looking at.

An imported desktop is brand-new hardware in the same way a duplicate is: import the same file twice and the two copies' ROMs are independent. Opening a .desktop.chiphippo with File ▸ Open… works too — it becomes a new project of one desktop.

Copying a design from one desktop to another

For a part of a desk rather than the whole of it, copy and paste:

1. On the desktop holding it, shift-drag a marquee around the design — the boards, the chips on them, and the wiring. A marquee takes in any board it encloses completely, and the selected set is outlined as one block.
2. Press Cmd/Ctrl+C. The whole sub-assembly is copied: the boards, everything seated on them (whether or not the box touched it), every wire with both ends inside the set, and the buses, net names, and anchored labels riding them. A wire with one end outside is left behind — it would have to be cut.
3. Click the tab you want it on and press Cmd/Ctrl+V.

The design appears under the cursor as a translucent ghost, following it with no button held — the same way a fresh breadboard does when you pick one from the palette. Move it where you want it:

• Boards outline green where the design will land and red where it overlaps something already on that desk.
• Bring it near a board that's already there and it snaps flush, dovetailing exactly as a board you dragged into place would.
• Click to drop it. Esc throws it away and leaves the desk untouched.

The drop is all-or-nothing: if any board would land on top of something, the click is refused rather than pasting half a design and silently cutting its wiring. The whole paste is a single undo step, and the pasted design is brand new hardware — fresh boards, fresh parts, and (for a ROM) its own fresh backing file, so editing the copy never touches the original.

The clipboard survives switching tabs, so you can paste the same design onto several desktops, or stamp it more than once on the same one.

Leaving a project

A project stays open between sessions — named or not. Relaunch Chip Hippo and it comes back on the desktop you were last on: the unsaved project from its working slot if there is one, and otherwise the project you used most recently. Starting or opening another one asks first about anything you'd lose (see Changing projects above).

Closing the window or quitting asks the same question. Because you didn't ask for a save, it doesn't ask you where anything goes: the project is written to the file it already has, or — having none yet — to the working slot, where the next launch will find it. Discard instead and the session's changes are gone. Cancel and nothing closes at all.

Opening an older project

Projects saved by an earlier version of Chip Hippo kept each desktop in a .desktop.chiphippo file of its own and listed their paths. Opening one brings every one of those designs into the single file, and nothing of yours is deleted — the old desktop files are left exactly where they are, and it is the project that changes shape. If one of those files has since been moved or deleted, that desktop opens empty and Chip Hippo tells you which file it was looking for.