one text element in a cell - not visible unless there are other objects in that cell?

Maks

Hi Matthias -

I came across one issue - it's small, but can you explain this -
if there is only one text element present in a cell, the text is not shown (even if "Show texts" is on in Setup) (its point is shown, but it's hard to see it, too small), but if there is any other object added to that cell (text, box,... whatever) - the text becomes visible.

Is this an intended feature, or a bug?

I am using klayout version 0.22.8 on Windows 64bit.

Thanks!

Max
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Matthias

Hi Max,

That is an effect which is caused by the text optimization. If you disable "lazy text rendering" in File/Setup -> Display/Optimization, the text should be shown.

The optimization is to skip drawing of texts on small cells - texts don't scale with zoom level (at least not with the default font), so there may be many texts to draw in full-chip view. To avoid the performance impact of that, cells are drawn without texts below a certain threshold size of the order of a few pixels.

When you have a cell with only a single text, it will have zero width and height hence fall in that category and the text will not be drawn. It is possible to suppress that behaviour on top level but then the same would happen on instantiated cells ...

Matthias

Maks

Hi Matthias -

Very cool!

It was good to ask - you not only answered the immediate question, but also explained a few more relevant things - both layout related, and klayout related :)

This is an excellent example of how the good software should work - to provoke diving deeper into the details and into the subject, step by step, rather than causing confusion, irritation, and cursing from the user...

Max
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Matthias

Thanks ... I am happy to see it pays off to take care of explanations :-)

Matthias