How to Use

A practical guide to the current v1.0.3 workflow.

1. Start at the home screen

DBC Utility now opens with a landing screen that gives you:

  • Direct entry into View DBC or Edit DBC
  • A recent-files list with persisted history
  • An About dialog with version and project links

2. View tab: inspect a DBC quickly

  • Load a .dbc file and browse messages and signals in a tree
  • Use the file info panel to inspect node count, message count, signal count, size, version, and buses
  • Search by messages, signals, or frame IDs
  • Use the multiplexer filter when a message contains multiplexed signals
  • Open the layout visualizer for a bit-level view

3. Edit tab: change structure safely

Messages

  • Add, edit, delete, duplicate, and reorder messages
  • Edit frame ID, length, bus type, senders, cycle time, frame type, protocol, and comments

Signals

  • Add, edit, delete, duplicate, and reorder signals
  • Work with start bit, length, byte order, signedness, scale, offset, min/max, unit, receivers, and comments
  • Use the value table editor for choices
  • Set multiplexer fields directly in the signal dialog

4. Compare tab: review changes with the right view

DBC Utility v1.0.3 adds a full compare workflow with three modes:

  • Side-by-Side for editable line-level comparison
  • Unified for compact change scanning
  • Structured for semantic comparison of messages, signals, and properties

Supporting actions include:

  • Swap primary and secondary files
  • Ignore whitespace
  • Previous/next change navigation
  • Undo/redo
  • Save Primary / Save Secondary with dirty tracking
  • Refresh from disk with unsaved-change prompts

5. Save-review flow

The edit workflow can route saves through compare review before writing to disk:

  1. Make edits in the editor.
  2. Trigger save when changes exist.
  3. Review the diff in the compare experience.
  4. Confirm the save only after the diff looks correct.

6. Layout visualization

The message signal layout visualizer lets you inspect CAN and CAN FD message packing at the bit level, including:

  • Up to 64-byte frames
  • Intel and Motorola byte order handling
  • Multiplexer filtering
  • Signal labels and bit-position annotations

Practical tip

Use Unified or Structured view first for fast review, then move to Side-by-Side only when you need exact line edits or directional copy.