• Logisim home page
• Guide to Being a Logisim User
  • Beginner's tutorial
    • Step 0: Orienting yourself
    • Step 1: Adding gates
    • Step 2: Adding wires
    • Step 3: Adding text
    • Step 4: Testing your circuit
  • Libraries and attributes
    • The explorer pane
    • The attribute table
    • Tool and component attributes
  • Subcircuits
    • Creating circuits
    • Using subcircuits
    • Debugging subcircuits
    • Logisim libraries
  • Wire bundles
    • Creating bundles
    • Splitters
    • Wire colors
  • Combinational analysis
    • Opening Combinational Analysis
    • Editing the truth table
    • Creating expressions
    • Generating a circuit
  • Menu reference
    • The File menu
    • The Edit menu
    • The Project menu
    • The Simulate menu
    • The Window and Help menus
  • Memory components
    • Poking memory
    • Pop-up menus and files
    • Hex editor
  • Logging
    • The Selection tab
    • The Table tab
    • The File tab
  • Application preferences
    • The Template tab
    • The Tools tab
    • The International tab
    • The Experimental tab
    • The command line
  • Project options
    • The Canvas tab
    • The Simulation tab
    • The Toolbar tab
    • The Mouse tab
  • Value propagation
    • Gate delays
    • Oscillation errors
    • Shortcomings
  • JAR libraries
    • Gray Code Incrementer
    • Library Class
    • Simple Gray Code Counter
    • Gray Code Counter
    • Guidelines
  • About the program
    • GNU General Public License
• Library Reference
  • Base library
    • Poke Tool
    • Edit Tool
    • Select Tool
    • Wiring Tool
    • Text Tool
    • Menu Tool
    • Splitter
    • Pin
    • Probe
    • Clock
    • Text
  • Gates library
    • Constant
    • NOT Gate
    • Buffer
    • AND/OR/NAND/NOR Gate
    • XOR/XNOR/Even/Odd Gate
    • Controlled Buffer/Inverter
  • Plexers library
    • Multiplexer
    • Demultiplexer
    • Decoder
    • Priority Encoder
    • Bit Selector
  • Arithmetic library
    • Adder
    • Subtractor
    • Multiplier
    • Divider
    • Negator
    • Comparator
    • Shifter
  • Memory library
    • D/T/J-K/S-R Flip-Flop
    • Register
    • Counter
    • Shift Register
    • Random
    • RAM
    • ROM
  • Input/Output library
    • Button
    • Joystick
    • Keyboard
    • LED
    • 7-Segment Display
    • Hex Digit Display
    • LED Matrix
    • TTY
  • Legacy library
    • Logisim 1.0 D/J-K Flip-Flop
    • Logisim 1.0 8-Bit Register

Debugging subcircuits

As you test larger circuits, you will likely find bugs. To nail down what's going wrong, exploring what's going on in the subcircuits while running the overall circuit can help. From viewing the overall circuit, you can do this by bringing up the subcircuit's popup menu (right-click or control-click its box). Then choose the View option.

After choosing this, the view will switch to the subcircuit.

Notice that the pins' values in the subcircuit match the values being sent to them in its containing circuit.

While in the subcircuit, you can change it however you want; any changes to pins' values will be propagated within the containing circuit. (If you attempt to toggle a pin using the Poke Tool, Logisim will pop up a dialog box asking whether you want to create a new state; responding Yes will divorce the state viewed with the subcircuit from the outer circuit's state, while responding No will cancel the toggle request.)

Once you have completed viewing and/or editing the parent circuit either by double-clicking it in the explorer pane, or via the Go Out To State submenu of the Simulate menu.

Next: Logisim libraries.