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Whats happening with EagleCad & Cadsoft?

Former Member

HI,

 

There have been plenty of user suggestions (including myself ) over the

years and many relating to the same old issues.

 

As a PAYING User, I have essentially invested my money ( but a lot of my

time) into using & Learning EagleCad.

 

So..

 

I would like to know ( from the horses mouth if possible) what is Cadsoft

Proposing/Planning for the next release(s) of Eagle Cad?

Is there an advantage to anyone ( especially users) if future features are

kept secret?

 

The following is what I can see as major changes in no particular order and

not inclusive..

 

Q1) Are there going to be any major changes to the LIBRARY?

 

Q2) Are we going to have a proper user definable /properly integrated BOM

window ?

 

Q3) Can CUT, COPY & PASTE ( and selection/group) work just like any other

application?

 

Q4) Can we open more than one PROJECT or LIBRARY part at the same time?

Will we be able to copy and paste ( Drag and drop) between these?

 

Q5) Can all the user settings and scr files ( or whatever setting files) be

kept in just ONE FILE , in one place and All accessible in ONE User

Preference (TABBED) window? (we can get rid of the Control panel if we do

this, and it means that updating Eaglecad will be less painful).

 

Q6) Are their any plans for some sort of SChematic/Layout hierarchy or

SUB-Circuits feature.

 

Q7) Any plans for a built in Gerber Viewer ( mac users have almost nothing

to work with here?)

 

Q8) Any plans for built in Circuit Simulation ( even basic stuff)?

 

Q9) Any plans for The Built in text editor to have its own Syntax

Highlighting etc?

 

Q10) Any plans for a built in Gerber Panalizer/Merger Tool?

 

Q11) Are there any plans for more control over pads/holes in the device

editor? i.e Odd/Complex shapes.

 

Q12) Can the design link feature work with other suppliers. ( should be

part of the BOM System anyhow)

 

Q13) Can we place less reliance on ULP's and command line entries as a

source of features/enhancements or usability, this should really be only

for specialised tasks. If you have a look at the ULP's over the years

theres a ton of them for Library Management and BOM'S  Is that telling you

something?

 

Q14) Can we have single keystroke functions for at lease basic items, Move,

Change Layer, etc ( user definable of course).

 

I just want to know whats happening, The Beta Test forum is VERY QUIET, The

last release only really had Farnell Shopping added/improved and a few bug

fix's, I am worried that development has either slowed down or stopped. OR

is their  something big in the pipeline. ( hoping!)

 

I am also worried that most suggestions are "Frowned" upon and this really

puts new users off !

 

So that I , ( and everyone else ) can stop wasting our time ( and your

time) with suggestions, can you please answer or give us something to look

forward to?

 

One reason I am asking all the above is that I am considering spending a

LOT OF TIME learning the scripting language so that I can program my own

features ( I have lots of big ideas) , Why, Because I don't know what is

the future for Eaglecad, And I am concerned that I may get to the stage of

writing very useful ULP's and then Cadsoft will release something in the

near future that replaces my work. Remember that all the time I spend

learning the scripting language TAKES ME AWAY From designing boards and

managing production, which is what brings in the money! and besides I

really pay cadsoft for the programming expertise.

 

At the end of the day I believe Eaglecad has a lot of potential, while I

can get boards designed ( its all there as far as capabilities are

concerned) I just think that there are too many frustrating / cumbersome

ways of doing things when I know there are easier /better ways.

 

The designing of a schematic or Layout or even designing a library part is

quite easy ( once you finally figure out the Eaglecad way) , and yes this

is the main parts of an application like this. The issues are with the way

it all comes together or integrates and is managed and how the user

interacts with it. As I have stated above  the key issues are Mainly

Project management, BOM Management, and especially Libray Management.

 

Thanks for listening .

 

Dave M

 

PS Please don't condemn me for asking.

--

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

 

  • in reply to Former Member

    On 07/26/2011 08:54 AM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

    davem wrote on Tue, 26 July 2011 05:57

    >> So bom's generally consists of the following fields..

    >>

    >>

    >> Line

    >> Company Part Number          (optional )

    >> Qty

    >> Designators                  (grouped together)

    >> Description                  (A full description)

    >> Revision                     (Optional)

    >> Manufacturer's Name          (A list of Approved manufacturers)

    >> Manufactures Part Number     (A list of Approved part no's)

    >> Vendor ( Supplier )          (A list of Approved vendors)

    >>

    >> Cost                         (Costs are needed but these are not

    >> usually passed on)

    I break up your description into three separate fields: general

    description, value, and package.  For example, a simple resistor might be

      Description: Resistor, fixed

      Value: 5.1k

      Package: 0805

     

    I break it down even further:

     

    Description

    Value

    Tolerance

    Rating

    Material

    Polarity

     

    Each of these is an attribute maintained in a table separate from the

    part, and linked by a part ID number.  This way, I can have different

    attributes for different components.  R's have a rating measured in

    watts and sometimes volts.  C's are measured in volts.  L's are measured

    in amps.  BJT's are measured in watts.  Material for R's might be 'thick

    film', 'thin film', 'silicone',or 'carbon comp'.  Material for C's might

    be 'X7R', 'NP0', etc.  Material for L's might be 'air core', 'iron

    core'.  IC's probably wouldn't have a material.  Transistors might have

    their Polarity set to 'PNP', or 'N-chan'.

     

    It essentially parallels the ATTRIBUTES feature of v 5.0, although my

    external DB was established long before 5.0.

     

    These can easily be expanded to include design specific attributes such

    as minimum hFE, maximum Rdson, or gate threshold voltage allowing a BOM

    program to search for approved parts with those parameters.

     

    One additional note regarding the desire for eagle to NOT have a fixed

    BOM system:  By using a BOM system external to eagle, other individuals

    can access the BOM without having to install eagle.  This also is able

    to integrate to an MRP (Material Resource Planning) system.

     

    Enjoy,

        - Chuck

     

     

  • On 7/27/11 7:26 AM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

    However, using a

    MAC, particularly for engineering, is just silly, and I don't envision

    supporting that unless there is a major shift in the market.

     

    Welcome to the shift image

     

    After having used both Windows and Linux for several years my main

    engineering development workstation is a Mac. By choice. There is BSD

    under the hood which is what makes it workable.

     

    Kudos to CadSoft for recognizing this and supporting Mac natively.

     

    Andrew.

     

  • in reply to Former Member

    Olin,

     

    I have had enough of your arrogance and rudeness, some of the things you

    say are outright childish, Please DO NOT Reply to any of my posts again!

     

    I have reported your post(s) to the moderators , enough is enough!

     

    I don't get the same smart *** replies from other HIGHLY SKILLED Eaglecad

    user here, only from you. You are not very professional in your attitude to

    new users, you need people skills, not just typing skills.

     

    Dave M

    --

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

     

  • Hello everyone,

     

    Just to add to the cross-platform-ness of Cadsoft, they originally got me onboard because they had a

    version of Eagle that was built for OS/2.  Of course they discontinued that line, but given the

    direction the OS/2 software market was going, they had no choice.

     

    --

     

    Tony

     

  • Am 28.07.2011 00:32, schrieb davem:

    HI Andrew,

     

    yes there are plenty of MAC users in engineering, ( most of them keep quiet

    about it)  and yes Thanks to CADSOFT for having the balls for creating a

    Cross platform CAD application. The fact that Eaglecad exists on the mac

    help me decide to get into the electronics business, I think thats

    important. I have used mac's ( and PC's) since the Apple IIe?? ( Showing my

    age now!)

     

    >

    Thanks

    Dave M

     

    The whole discussion about the hardware is childish.

    This newsgroup is about eagle. So please everyone take your stupid bla

    bla about hardware elsewhere.

     

    --

    Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

     

    Joern Paschedag

     

  • in reply to Former Member

    Am 28.07.2011 00:32, schrieb davem:

    HI Andrew,

     

    yes there are plenty of MAC users in engineering, ( most of them keep quiet

    about it)  and yes Thanks to CADSOFT for having the balls for creating a

    Cross platform CAD application. The fact that Eaglecad exists on the mac

    help me decide to get into the electronics business, I think thats

    important. I have used mac's ( and PC's) since the Apple IIe?? ( Showing my

    age now!)

     

    >

    Thanks

    Dave M

     

    The whole discussion about the hardware is childish.

    This newsgroup is about eagle. So please everyone take your stupid bla

    bla about hardware elsewhere.

     

    --

    Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

     

    Joern Paschedag

     

  • in reply to Former Member

    Hello everyone,

     

    Just to add to the cross-platform-ness of Cadsoft, they originally got me onboard because they had a

    version of Eagle that was built for OS/2.  Of course they discontinued that line, but given the

    direction the OS/2 software market was going, they had no choice.

     

    --

     

    Tony

     

  • in reply to Former Member

    On 07/26/11 09:43, davem wrote:

    ...

    Re; PADS, So you are saying that currently I can draw "polygons" and

    "wires" inside a part definition so long as they "TOUGHT a pad?

     

    I assume you mean "TOUCH"?!

     

    A wire in a package drawing will be considered electrically

    connected to a pad/smd if one of its end points coincides

    with the center of the pad/smd. These need to be the exact

    same coordinates.

     

    A polygon in a package drawing will be considered electrically

    connected to a pad/smd if the center of the pad/smd is inside

    the area defined by the center lines of the polygon wires.

     

    What about VIA'S for polygon heatsinks?

     

    Vias can only be part of a signal, not a package.

     

    However, in version 6 it will be possible to connect any number

    of pads to a single pin. Sou you could draw your polygon in such

    a way that it includes all the pads you want to have as part

    of your heatsink, and in the device connect all these pads to

    the same pin. The polygon will initially be considered electrically

    connected to only one pad (whichever comes first in the data structure),

    but the multiple-pad-to-one-pin connection in the device will

    make them all one large electrically connected object.

     

    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

    _______________________________________________________________

     

  • Am 28.07.2011 16:13, schrieb Klaus Schmidinger:

    A wire in a package drawing will be considered electrically

    connected to a pad/smd if one of its end points coincides

    with the center of the pad/smd. These need to be the exact

    same coordinates.

     

    That sounds VERY useful, but just for safety let me point out a

    potential implementation problem (with a rather high probability, you

    already know that, but just in case...):

      - There might be several neighbouring pads in the same row that

        need to be connected with predefined routed wires.

      - Therefore, one would draw those pads and draw a wire from

        each of them to the next one.

      - Doing this NOW makes EAGLE automatically 'optimise' all of

        the drawn wires, so that they merge into ONE wire. In the new

        scheme, this would then mean that the 'inner' pads are not

        connected anymore.

      - Therefore, during the drawing of wires in libraries for

        version 6, the WIRE command should behave the same as the

        ROUTE command does now, and no automatic optimising should

        be done with connected pads.

     

    As for the rest of your e-mail: Yes, YES, please, PLEASE.

     

    Andreas Weidner

     

  • in reply to kcadsoft

    Klaus Schmidinger wrote:

    On 07/23/11 09:54, davem wrote:

    >> ...

     

     

    >> Q6) Are their any plans for some sort of SChematic/Layout hierarchy or

    >> SUB-Circuits feature.

     

    It will be possible to paste from a consistent board/schematic file pair

    into the current project by entering the file name in the PASTE command

    (i.e. "paste from file"). This will also be possible via drag&drop.

    That way you can easily and consistently fetch various pre-routed building

    blocks into your project.

     

     

    Getting back to Dave's question, will there be a schmematic hierarchy in

    the next release? A while ago you guys said there would be. Is it still

    planned?

     

    I think that's very important since large companies won't buy Eagle

    without a hierarchy, you can't do large projects properly without that.

     

    In that case I'd upgrade as well. But I am not going to ask "When are we

    there?" image

     

     

    --

    Regards, Joerg

     

    http://www.analogconsultants.com/