Library Management Tool

Element 14 User wrote on Tue, 18 October 2011 09:54

I'm currently working on a library creation and management tool that

can be used with Eagle. This will make it much easier to create new

parts, reuse old ones and share libraries with others.

In what way will it make it easier to create parts, reuse old ones, and

share libraries above the native Eagle capabilities?  It seems creating

parts and reusing old ones is already pretty easy.  Sharing libraries with

others is more about common conventions than the actual sharing, so I'm

curious how you intend to address that too.

Frankly, this sounds like a answer wishing for a question, but I'm willing

to be convinced if you can show how I get something useful to me I don't

have now.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Am 18.10.2011 16:40, schrieb Olin Lathrop:

In what way will it make it easier to create parts, reuse old ones, and

share libraries above the native Eagle capabilities?

Thanks for that question: It would be a real help to get some

information about what is planned for this tool. In my experience, using

EXTERNAL tools for ANY software quite often requires LOTS of converting

etc., so the main benefit of such tools is often dramatically reduced,

which of course should be avoided.

  - WILL this be an external tool?

  - Or will it be some ULP that 'talks' directly with EAGLE?

  - Will it work on ALL three platforms or not?

  - What new functions will it introduce?

  - ...

Andreas Weidner

Thanks for responding.

- It's mostly web based, with an Eagle extension planned.

- There is an expedited process to extract; symbols, footprints and mechanics from datasheets to build a complete part model.

- Revision management, change history, variants etc.

- Crowd sourcing

I'm not ready for a public beta, however if you think this might help you out, i'd love to talk.

Thanks,

Andrew

Am 18.10.2011 17:58, schrieb Andrew Seddon:

- It's mostly web based, with an Eagle extension planned.

If this is a program that has NOTHING to do with EAGLE, the integration

into the EAGLE workflow will probably be hard to design in a usable way.

In order for Farnell to push EAGLE support, it would be sort of

counterproductive to spend lots of bucks into programming something that

does NOT work flawlessly with EAGLE (at least from MY point of view).

- There is an expedited process to extract; symbols, footprints and mechanics from datasheets to build a complete part model.

I cannot imagine how this could be achieved nicely, but perhaps I will

be in for a big surprise...

- Revision management, change history, variants etc.

These things SOUND nice, but if this would be a SEPARATE program, you

would again need to export the created libraries to EAGLE, where one

does either NOT have these functions, or have them in a DIFFERENT way,

so usability again might suffer.

Please don't misunderstand me: I nicely programmed library tool with

wonderful features might be quite a good idea. On the other hand,

EAGLE's library functions are not bad, either (I find them still the

best around), so your tool would need to have EXCELLENT EAGLE

integration to persuade EAGLE users to switch to such an unknown tool.

And why would Farnell WANT the users to switch to something else?

EAGLE's theirs now, so wouldn't it be more useful to try to INCLUDE the

wonderful new library features into EAGLE instead of creating a

completely new competitive tool?

- Crowd sourcing

What does this mean? I don't know that word.

Andreas Weidner

Andreas,

Thanks for your thoughts, you raise some interesting points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing of parts data will avoid duplication of data entry.

Andrew

Element 14 User wrote on Thu, 20 October 2011 09:06

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing of parts data will avoid

duplication of data entry.

But as I said earlier, library sharing is much more about different

conventions than avoiding duplication of the small amount of effort it

takes to make a new part.

Is the crowd going to use the right text size and ratio for the silkscreen

layer that I want?  Will they add the tDocu text according to my rules?

Will they add the various attributes required by my BOM generation system?

Will they take the extra care like I do to make the symbol look nice and

intuitive in the schematic, or will they follow the same sloppiness used to

make the supplied (and useless) Eagle libraries?

I just don't see how you're going to overcome these problems.  I am willing

to be convinced but for that to happen, you need to explain how your system

will work, not just all the great things it will supposedly do.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Am 20.10.2011 15:06, schrieb Andrew Seddon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing of parts data will avoid duplication of data entry.

Thanks for the info. It never occurred to me that I could just look it

up in Wikipedia - my mistake.

Some additional thoughts about some sentence mentioned there:

    'and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd also sorts

           through the solutions, finding the best ones.'

This sounds like a very nice concept, but the problem in this case is

'finding the best ones'. There simply is NO general best solution for

any library part, because every user has some different notions about

what is needed and what not. While ONE user might find it nice that the

schematic pins of an IC are placed exactly as on the board, some OTHER

user might find it much more useful to place them in a more functional

(and not geometrical) way. An SMD footprint that works perfectly for

automatic soldering in an oven might be completely unsolderable by hand.

Therefore, I myself do NOT use other people's libraries, but always

create the components myself (but perhaps I'm just the exception). In

some rare cases (with large or complicated packages), I use other

libraries as a starting point and patch them considerably.

Sharing libraries seems to me mainly for people who

  - are new to EAGLE and either do not know yet how to create libraries

    or do not yet WANT to spend the necessary time and

  - do not have to obey certain design or documentation rules, for which

    library consistency is necessary.

For those, it would be a REAL help (provided everything's easy to use),

but I'm not so sure about those layout professionals out there that need

things to be reliable and consistent.

Andreas Weidner

Andreas Weidner wrote on Thu, 20 October 2011 10:01

Therefore, I myself do NOT use other people's libraries, but always

create the components myself (but perhaps I'm just the exception).

I don't think so.  I make all my own parts according to my own conventions.

I don't even have the Eagle-supplied libraries in the library path.  The

would just be clutter.  I know James has mentioned he makes all his own

library parts too.  You're not going to find a real professional blindly

using someone else's library part.  It would take as much time to check it

as it would to just make it the right way in the first place.  While I'm

willing to let others use my libraries, I'm not going to use theirs.

Let's keep this in perspective.  Making library parts is a small fraction

of the effort of a overall board design.  I seem to need a few new parts

every design, but that's not a big deal.

I get the impression that those that come here talking about better library

tools and library sharing are not professionals, and haven't bothered to

learn the library editor well.  They think making library parts is hard and

therefore think there is a significant problem to solve with fancy software

somehow.  The real solution is to read the manual and learn how to use the

library editor properly.

However, none of this proves things can't be made better.  I am willing to

hear how someone thinks they can make it better.  Until then, I'll remain

skeptical.  This issue seems to pop into some newbie's head every 6 months

or so, with this current OP at least not seeming as rabid as earlier ones

that started using Eagle last week and think they know how to solve all the

problems.  However, note that even this OP has so far refused to explain

how he plans to address these issues or engage in any meaningful dialog

with the potential users.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Am 20.10.2011 17:00, schrieb Olin Lathrop:

Andreas Weidner wrote on Thu, 20 October 2011 10:01

>> Therefore, I myself do NOT use other people's libraries, but always

>> create the components myself (but perhaps I'm just the exception).

You are certainly not.

I don't think so.  I make all my own parts according to my own conventions.

  I don't even have the Eagle-supplied libraries in the library path.  The

would just be clutter.  I know James has mentioned he makes all his own

library parts too.  You're not going to find a real professional blindly

using someone else's library part.  It would take as much time to check it

as it would to just make it the right way in the first place.

IMO Absolute correct.

SNIP

Let's keep this in perspective.  Making library parts is a small fraction

of the effort of a overall board design.  I seem to need a few new parts

every design, but that's not a big deal.

IMO makinng new parts is part of the business.

 

I get the impression that those that come here talking about better library

tools and library sharing are not professionals, and haven't bothered to

learn the library editor well.  They think making library parts is hard and

therefore think there is a significant problem to solve with fancy software

somehow.  The real solution is to read the manual and learn how to use the

library editor properly.

I have the same feeling.

 

However, none of this proves things can't be made better.  I am willing to

hear how someone thinks they can make it better.

SNIP

Yes, lets see what is coming out of it. Most of the time these things

pop like a soap bubble.

(Sorry Olin for cuttig your letter to pieces, I'm lazy about writing)

--

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

Joern Paschedag

Thanks for the viewpoint.

Library curation is a big deal for a professional engineers, spanning the whole design->production chain. There are a few high end products on the market to deal with library creation and management, but as mentioned the vast majority of users end up producing their own standards, processes and schema in an ad-hoc manner.

As ever, please email

andrew@seddon.me

if library curation is a pain point for you and you would like to take a look at a solution.

Cheers,

Andrew