"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

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Klaus Schmidinger wrote:

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

--

Many replies so far but I feel many of the ideas do not address all use

scenarios

The TEXT on your design idea would not be workable. When you zoom, any

TOP/BOTTOM text on the board would likely be outside of the current view.

Changing the background color would definitely play havoc with  your color

perception and may introduce colour mixing problems.i.e. when a via color is

set to the background color

A technique used in may applications is to toggle the look of an icon. Care

is need here with placement and 'alerting' contrast if this is to work well.

That  icon can often be outside your peripheral vision when included on the

other toolbars. With a window reduced in size, the icon/button may be in the

drop down extensions of the toolbar and not be visable at all.

That said, the icon that toggles the view should toggle its face.

The XY icon

Added to the design area, be it solid or semi transparent, with a dense

design it is likely the icon would be lost in the view. Many would not like

this additional clutter in the design area.

The icon would need to be positioned  so it remains in position relative to

the window as you change zoom.

Alternatively it could be positionalble by the user (floating toolbar style

which permits it to be moved off the design area) and  transparency

adjustable. Even the design being user definable using a user specified

graphic.

It should only be visable for the alternate view thus improving its alerting

value.

Outlining the design area

You could add a boarder of 1 to 3 pixels to board design view. The colour

would have to be customisable to cater for the vaious chosen backgrounds.

This technique steals these few pixels from the design area.

I can see the alerting effect being diminished in some density/zoom/color

situations

My preference is to have the indication just outside of the design area.

Here are two ideas.

1) Change the colour of the scroll  bars and their background. Workable but

no way of quickly understanding why they changed colour

2) Change the background colour of the STATUS bar. The status bar is usually

alway visible and in the attension grabbing position below you sight line.

Words should alo be added to indicate that the BOTTOM view is actrive.  A

simple XY graphic could also be added. indicating X increases to the left.

The colour, words and icon should not be lost when  ULPs use the status

command.

I favour this last option.

Warren

warrenbrayshaw wrote on Thu, 03 March 2011 15:16

No discussion has been had on the direction of the flip.

It has been implied that the flip is horizontal, like MIRROR, but a

vertical flip is just as valid.  If I'm handling a PCB the flip I perform

depends on the aspect ratio so the option to flip vertically also may be

desirable. - thoughts?

I suppose the full featured case would be to either mirror or not and

rotate any 90 degree increments.

However, if all that fanciness holds things up and makes it more difficult

to use, I'd rather just get a simple toggle mirror view command.

--

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

warrenbrayshaw wrote on Thu, 03 March 2011 15:16

No discussion has been had on the direction of the flip.

It has been implied that the flip is horizontal, like MIRROR, but a

vertical flip is just as valid.  If I'm handling a PCB the flip I perform

depends on the aspect ratio so the option to flip vertically also may be

desirable. - thoughts?

I suppose the full featured case would be to either mirror or not and

rotate any 90 degree increments.

However, if all that fanciness holds things up and makes it more difficult

to use, I'd rather just get a simple toggle mirror view command.

--

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