"Flip View" button

On 2/26/2011 10:41 AM, Jeff Gough wrote:

When routing the back of a board, it would be really nice to be able to

flip the view to see the back of the board as it really is.

 

It would be extremely useful when debugging a board, as it's really painful

to find a signal in eagle, then mentally flip it to find it on the physical

board.

 

It would also be useful for checking text layout on the back of the board.

Mentally flipping text is a bit of a pain, and almost impossible when

you're trying to evaluate its aesthetic appeal. Yes, I do consider

aesthetics important in PCB design!

 

I know I can print out the board mirrored, or group-then-mirror, and

various other hacks, but if this button existed, I'd click it every minute

or so when routing a complex design.

 

In fact, I'd prefer the board view to immediately mirror when I changed

routing layer to add a via! Other people probably wouldn't, so this would

have to be an option that defaulted to "off".

 

I've been using eagle for ten years, always wanting this feature, but only

just realised there was a suggestions forum!

 

gEDA, Orcad, Altium Designer, and probably others support this so I can't

be alone in desiring this feature! (see

http://wiki.altium.com/display/ADOH/AltiumDesignerViewer-ViewingPCBDocuments#AltiumDesignerViewer-ViewingPCBDocuments-FlippingtheBoard

for example)

the only thing I would add is that it should be very clear that you are

in flipped view, not requiring checking coordinates direction, pushing

buttons, issuing commands. this should go without saying, but just to be

sure, I'm saying it!

I have just finished a board that is circle shape and almost symmetrical

layout, what a nightmare if I don't know which side I'm looking at, it's

hard to keep it straight even without flipping.

On 02/28/11 22:29, Gary Gofstein wrote:

...

the only thing I would add is that it should be very clear that you are

in flipped view, not requiring checking coordinates direction, pushing

buttons, issuing commands. this should go without saying, but just to be

sure, I'm saying it!

Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

I guess any small icon indicating this will be overlooked, and a thick

"yellow/black" border around the draw window indicating "Caution - you're

in flip mode!" will be overkill...

Klaus Schmidinger

--

_______________________________________________________________

Klaus Schmidinger                       Phone: +49-8635-6989-10

CadSoft Computer GmbH                   Fax:   +49-8635-6989-40

Pleidolfweg 15                          Email:   kls@cadsoft.de

D-84568 Pleiskirchen, Germany           URL:     www.cadsoft.de

_______________________________________________________________

"Klaus Schmidinger" <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de> wrote in message

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On 02/28/11 22:29, Gary Gofstein wrote:

>> ...

>> the only thing I would add is that it should be very clear that you are

>> in flipped view, not requiring checking coordinates direction, pushing

>> buttons, issuing commands. this should go without saying, but just to be

>> sure, I'm saying it!

 

Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

I guess any small icon indicating this will be overlooked, and a thick

"yellow/black" border around the draw window indicating "Caution - you're

in flip mode!" will be overkill...

Does it really matter if it's clear or not? People may want to draw the

board from bottom instead from top and should be allowed to. Using the names

"top" and "bottom" on the layers is maybe more confusing than just using 1

and 16. Even using the number 16 for bottom layer is a bit confusing for <16

layer boards.

But here is a suggestion. Show an icon with a tilted square, where layer 1

has the text "1" on it, and an arrow pointing in the view direction. It

could be placed anywhere really, but maybe the toolbar is a natural place.

Clicking it could toggle the view. The function and icon could also be

placed in the view menu.

Klaus Schmidinger schrieb:

On 02/28/11 22:29, Gary Gofstein wrote:

>> ...

>> the only thing I would add is that it should be very clear that you are

>> in flipped view, not requiring checking coordinates direction, pushing

>> buttons, issuing commands. this should go without saying, but just to be

>> sure, I'm saying it!

 

Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

I guess any small icon indicating this will be overlooked, and a thick

"yellow/black" border around the draw window indicating "Caution - you're

in flip mode!" will be overkill...

Do you know NoScript (for FF/SM)? It displays a pale yellow bar with

warnings/information at the lower screen border (directly above the

status bar) if there are disabled scripts in the currently viewed web page.

I think this method could be a good solution to this problem. It is

clearly visible, but not overkill. Eventually it can be acknowledged and

then disappear (to regain that screen area for the design).

While we're at it, I think that presenting such a warning (maybe in the

same style) also makes sense if annotation is inactive for whatever reason.

Tilmann

"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

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"Klaus Schmidinger" <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de> wrote in message

news:ikia8r$nj4$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

>> On 02/28/11 22:29, Gary Gofstein wrote:

>>> ...

>>> the only thing I would add is that it should be very clear that you are

>>> in flipped view, not requiring checking coordinates direction, pushing

>>> buttons, issuing commands. this should go without saying, but just to be

>>> sure, I'm saying it!

>>

>> Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

>> I guess any small icon indicating this will be overlooked, and a thick

>> "yellow/black" border around the draw window indicating "Caution - you're

>> in flip mode!" will be overkill...

 

Does it really matter if it's clear or not? People may want to draw the

board from bottom instead from top and should be allowed to. Using the

names "top" and "bottom" on the layers is maybe more confusing than just

using 1 and 16. Even using the number 16 for bottom layer is a bit

confusing for <16 layer boards.

 

But here is a suggestion. Show an icon with a tilted square, where layer 1

has the text "1" on it, and an arrow pointing in the view direction. It

could be placed anywhere really, but maybe the toolbar is a natural place.

Clicking it could toggle the view. The function and icon could also be

placed in the view menu.

For the ones that gets confused, I suggest also adding "top"/"bottom" in

clear text at top/bottom layers, so that it gets mirrored in rear view.

"Klaus Schmidinger" <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de> wrote in message

news:ikia8r$nj4$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

On 02/28/11 22:29, Gary Gofstein wrote:

Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

I guess any small icon indicating this will be overlooked, and a thick

"yellow/black" border around the draw window indicating "Caution - you're

in flip mode!" will be overkill...

 

What about if you colorize with yellow (for example) the background EXCEPT

the board? (using min/max values for X,Y - we can access them right now from

ulps).

This way colors on the board remain as user set them, and it's highly

visible that something it's not in "default mode".

--

Silviu Epure

"Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Romania

http://www.etc.ugal.ro/sepure

Am 01.03.2011 09:20, schrieb Klaus Schmidinger:

Do you have any particular idea on how this could be made "very clear"?

2D/3D CAD programs often display a small overlay at the lower left part

of the window, showing a coordinate cross with all available axis

directions.

In a drill program of my own invention, I use the attached pictures

(plus others) to indicate the current view:

  1. "top0" shows the view at the top layer with no rotation

  2. "bottom90" shows the view at the bottom layer with additional

     90 degrees rotation.

And yes, since the display of any vector objects needs matrix

manipulations, anyway, it would be an additional bonus if one could

ROTATE the view. Therefore, I propose the following:

  3. Add BOTH mirror and rotation (in 90deg steps) to the VIEW.

  4. In case neither rotation nor mirroring is selected, do not

     display any additional overlay.

  5. In case the view matrix is not "identity", display the small

     overlay the following way:

  6. Mirrored view: Blue "B", non-mirrored view: Red "T",

     plus the current direction of both axis.

  7. Expand the WINDOW command to make use of the standard

     rotation/mirror syntax used for MOVE etc., so that "MR90"

     can be used.

Andreas Weidner

"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

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"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

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>> "Klaus Schmidinger"  also be placed in the view menu.

 

For the ones that gets confused, I suggest also adding "top"/"bottom" in

clear text at top/bottom layers, so that it gets mirrored in rear view.

I see this could be mis-interpreted. I meant the USER should do this. Not

Cadsoft.

"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

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"Morten Leikvoll" <mleikvol@yahoo.nospam> wrote in message

news:ikic6j$1p3$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

>> "Klaus Schmidinger"  also be placed in the view menu.

 

For the ones that gets confused, I suggest also adding "top"/"bottom" in

clear text at top/bottom layers, so that it gets mirrored in rear view.

I see this could be mis-interpreted. I meant the USER should do this. Not

Cadsoft.