GUI workspace
The GUI shows the cell compiled from your current Neovim buffers. It's built for looking at a cell and editing it spatially; the source stays the single source of truth.
Window
argone opens one window. Neovim is on the left, the GUI's views are on the right, and the title bar spans both. Drag the divider between them to resize. View → Neovim hides or shows Neovim; hiding it moves focus to the canvas.
Until the analyzer starts, the right side says so. When the analyzer restarts, the GUI reconnects to the new one. Opening a file from another library in the same Neovim moves the GUI to that library.
Views
A cell has three views, shown one at a time in the same window: its layout, its schematic, and its symbol. Switch with the control at the right end of the tool strip, the View menu, V (the next view, in that order and around to the layout), or Shift+V (the previous one). Each view has its own camera, selection, and tools; the sidebars follow the view.
Regions
| Region | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Canvas | The active view: solved geometry with selection, dimensions, and placement previews; or the schematic's symbols and wires; or the cell's symbol. |
| Tool strip | The active view's tools, and the view control. In the layout view: select, rectangle, polygon, path, dimension, and instance. |
| Left sidebar | In the layout view, scopes and nested instances; selecting one sets where new geometry is inserted. In the schematic view, the instances, devices, and nets. In the symbol view, the ports. |
| Right sidebar | In the layout view, the drawing layer and per-layer visibility. In the other views, the properties of the selection. |
| Neovim | Your editor, with the source. Its command line is where the GUI asks for text, such as a cell invocation or a name. Cell invocations complete with Tab. |
Start screen
Until a cell is open, the window shows a start screen in place of the tool strip and sidebars. It has buttons to open a cell or create one, and lists the cells of your library, including those in its modules. Click a cell to open it. If the cell has a parameter without a default, the Neovim command line opens with Argon openCell and the cell's name filled in, so you can type the arguments.
Above the library's cells, Recently opened lists the last ten invocations opened in this library, newest first, arguments included. Click one to reopen exactly that invocation. An invocation is added once it compiles, whether you opened it from the GUI or with :Argon openCell, or made it with New Cell…. Cells an agent opens aren't added. Invocations that differ only in spacing or comments count as one, and reopening an invocation moves it to the top. Renaming a cell updates its invocations in the list. An invocation is dimmed if its cell isn't among the library's cells, such as a deleted cell or one from a dependency, but you can still click it.
The list is stored in .argon/recents.json in the library's root directory. When Argon creates .argon/, it adds a .gitignore that ignores everything in it, so the list stays out of version control.
Open a cell
Press O, type an invocation such as inverter(1200., 2000., 4), and press Enter. The arguments are parsed and type-checked in the library's scope. Tab completes cell names and, inside the parentheses, the cell's keyword parameters.
What you open is an invocation, not just a cell name. If you change a cell's signature, reopen it with matching arguments.
Two-way editing
- Neovim sends the current source to the analyzer.
- The analyzer parses, checks, and compiles the open cell.
- The GUI draws the latest valid result.
- When you draw or drag on the canvas, the GUI asks the analyzer for a source edit.
- Neovim applies the edit, and the loop starts again.
A compile error keeps the last good layout on screen unless the open cell itself no longer compiles. Press Ctrl+Shift+D to see diagnostics.