+Some integrated circuits like microcontrollers and embedded processors +have more features than physical pins and use internal multiplexers to +configure which physical pin should serve which functionality (peripheral). +
+There are different ways to cope with this on the schematics without extra +features: +
+However these are time consuming procedures and prone to error as some +functionality are in group, e.g. an SPI typically requires a clock and at +least a MISO or a MOSI (but usually both). With the above manual processes +the software is not doing any verification whether function-terminal assigments +are valid (the given terminal indeed has the given function) or whether a +group of functions, like SPI, have all relevant terminals marked. +
+The funcmap plugin provides an automated solution to the majority of the common +cases. It works a bit similar to devmap: (alternate pin) function maps, +or funcmaps for short, are written by the user in a text file on +a per part basis, collected in a funcmap library. Then the file name of +the funcmap is set in an attribute in one of the symbols +(contributing to a component). +
+During compilation the component inherits +the attribute and the plugin loads and caches the funcmap file into sheet +local library (so the sheet file is self-contained without the external +funcmap lib shipped with it). Then the plugin looks at the attributes of +each port of the component to compute a funcmap name to display - this is +how the alternate function is applied. Instead of a hardwired string, the +symbol shall print the computed funcmap name attribute. This way, after +a succesful compilation, the sheet shows the dynamically calculated, +verified alternate function of each port. +
+Furthermore CLI actions and GUI dialog boxes are provided to overview and +edit and verify the consistency of the per terminal function selection. + +
+Further details are sorted into the following sub-sections: +