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Using the Menus

You interact with NOL using several different types of menus:

The top menu bar provides access to basic functionality, including controlling the diagram, cloning blocks from palettes, and customizing the environment.
The block menus allow you to perform generic G2 operations on blocks, such as cloning, transferring, and deleting, as well as specific NOL operations, such as configuring.
The G2 menus provide all the functionality of G2 within the NOL environment, for example, the creation of class definitions, variables and parameters, rules, and procedures.

Using the Top Menu Bar

When you start NOL, you initially see the top-level menu bar:

The menu bar contains pulldown menus, which you access by clicking on the menu name or the Gensym logo. Some of the menus contains submenus, and others display a dialog box when selected.

Note: To use the top-level menu bar, G2 must be running. To start G2 running, select Main Menu > Start or Resume.

Here are all the available menus:

Displaying the Top Menu for Other Layered Products

If you have other layered products loaded with NOL, such as G2 Diagnostic Assistant, you can switch between the menus associated with each product.

To switch between menus for different application products:

Select the Available Menus submenu under the Gensym logo, and choose the product whose menus you want to see.

Here is the Other Menus submenu with GDA and NOL licensed, and NOL currently selected:

Using Block Menus

Each block has an associated menu, which allows you to perform:

Standard G2 operations on blocks, such as clone, transfer, rotate, and delete.
Specific NOL operations, such as configuring the attributes of the block, overriding the output value, or disabling the block to prevent it from evaluating.

Here is a sample menu associated with a Numeric Entry Point block:

For information on the specific menu choices available for each block, see the documentation for each block.

Using G2 Menus in NOL

You can use any G2 menu choice within NOL. The G2 menus that you can use are:

The G2 Main Menu, which controls whether G2 is running or paused, and allows you to load and save applications.
The KB Workspace menu, which allows you to create G2 definitions and objects on the workspace, as well as set up applications.

Here are samples of these menus:

For information about using these menus, see the G2 Reference Manual.

There are certain G2 interactions, however, that you should not perform in NOL:

Caution: Do not attempt to edit a diagram when NOL is reset, i.e., after you use the Main Menu > Reset menu choice; otherwise the results will be unpredictable. Before adding, deleting, or modifying blocks on a workspace when NOL is reset, you must start G2 using Main Menu > Start.

Caution: Do not use the KB Workspace > Disable followed by the KB Workspace > Enable menu choice on a workspace containing blocks; otherwise, the results may be unpredictable. To keep individual blocks on a workspace from evaluating, use the disable evaluation menu choice for the block or workspace.

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