A newcomer's experience and what can be done about it

Am 09.11.2011 18:54, schrieb Lix Paulian:

2. Eliminate the CLI from the GUI, or at least allow it to be

> hidden (this should be the default). I spent quite some time

> reading the forum and I noticed that there are a couple of

> die-hard users that would rather get rid of one of their fingers

> than of the CLI. However, they are a small minority. There is

> even someone claiming being able to do certain operations

> 10 times faster with the CLI than in the GUI: this doesn't mean

> that the CLI (or for that matter that guy) is better, rather

> that the GUI is so poorly designed, that it does not offer the

> same functionality!

Since the user claiming the '10 times faster' absurdity is ME, let me

give you some examples for command line usage (CLI), sorted by ascending

usefulness:

  1. Starting commands or actions:

     You do NOT click on the 'value' button, but just type 'v'

     (+return) into the CLI. This of course works, but it is NOT

     really the most wonderful time saver. It's effective and OK

     with me, but nobody NEEDS a command line for that.

  2. Starting commands with options:

     If you need to change the value of 64 capacitors to '100n'

     (because you have 32 opamps in your circuit), you can do it

     WITHOUT the CLI by

      - clicking on each of them and

      - entering '100n' for each of them.

     That's a LOT of work (1 click and 5 keystrokes per part).

     If you're clever, you only type '100n' ONCE, put the text in

     the clipboard and insert it in the edit field every time.

     That's better, put STILL some work (1 click and 2 keystrokes

     per part). Using the CLI, you

      - type 'v 100n' (+return) and

      - then click on every capacitor.

     This is much less work and consumes much less time (1 click

     per part and ONCE '100n').

     But I agree with you that this IS a point where a better user

     interface would melt down the CLI advantage to zero: If EAGLE

     would support changing values for GROUPS, the CLI would NOT

     be necessary for this anymore. So the CLI is very useful NOW,

     but would NOT be necessary for an optimised interface.

  3. Selecting library objects:

     When inserting a library part into a design, the PURE mouse

     user

      - clicks on 'add',

      - clicks on LOTS of library tree branches for browsing

        (especially when it's not clear in which library to

        search for the component),

      - selects the part,

      - clicks OK

     and has the part at the mouse cursor for positioning. For

     components that you know nothing of, that's the method of

     choice. But it takes a LOT of time. If you know the NAME

     of your component, you

      - click on 'add',

      - enter the name of the component,

      - click OK

     and have it at your mouse cursor for positioning. That is

     MUCH quicker, but still needs several mouse clicks PLUS

     a bit of typing. Using ONLY the CLI, you

      - just type 'add r' (+return),

     which obviously is VERY fast.

     I checked this just now with MY libraries and the component

     'R': Pure mouse usage takes 12 seconds (ONLY 12, because I

     know in which library to find the resistor), mouse usage with

     dialog text entry takes 6 seconds, CLI takes 1-2 second.

     Here, EAGLE has a GOOD user interface that allows for

     mouse usage as well as wildcard text editing etc. It might be

     that there are methods to further speed up that dialog, but

     it will NEVER be as quick as the CLI.

     Of course this needs a useful and easy-to-remember part

     naming scheme, which the standard libraries of EAGLE do NOT

     provide, but hey, this is NOT a problem of the CLI, but the

     libraries.

  4. Selecting board objects:

     You created a schematic with 20 opamps, 50 capacitors, 50

     resistors and other stuff, and now switch to the board: All

     components are placed SOMEWHERE, and, if you zoom to the

     whole board, you cannot even read their names, because the

     texts are too small (due to the sheer number of components

     on screen). If you now want to place all components around

     opamp N1 ONLY using the mouse, you

      - zoom in sufficiently to be able to read all names,

      - pan and search until you find the desired component,

      - click on it, pan back again to where it SHOULD be placed,

      - place it,

      - pan back to search for the NEXT component, etc.

     This works, but takes FOREVER.

     Using the CLI, you

      - zoom (with the mouse!) to the EMPTY area where you

        WANT your opamp to be placed,

      - activate the MOVE command (by typing or via mouse),

      - type 'n1' (+return) in the CLI and can place your part

        immediately. No searching, no panning, no scrolling

        necessary.

      - After placing THAT part, you type the name of the NEXT

        one and can IMMEDIATELY place it.

     This is BLINDINGLY FAST and saves MUCH MORE than ten times

     the work necessary with pure mouse usage.

     And in this case, there is NO possibility to EVER do this

     decently with a user interface, because the user interface

     would be nothing else but an edit field where you needed

     to type in your component name, anyway (which behaves

     exactly like the CLI, so why get rid of the CLI and build

     something new into the user interface that behaves like

     a CLI?).

Therefore, the EAGLE command line is NOT the tool of choice for

beginners or people who just need to activate a certain command, but one

for people who know a BIT about EAGLE (they need NOT be specialists) and

want to GREATLY speed up their work IN CERTAIN AREAS. For the areas

mentioned above, you do NOT need to learn crazy or complicated syntax,

but just

  - VALUE  there are a couple of

> die-hard users that would rather get rid of one of their fingers

> than of the CLI.

  - I MIGHT be a die-hard user, but

  - I do not like the CLI because I love typing or hate the

    mouse (as a matter of fact I LOVE scroll wheel mice), but

  - just because it's REALLY USEFUL.

Andreas Weidner

PS: Of course you CAN enter crazy and complicated syntax into the

command line. But who the heck wants to do that? MUCH better to keep it

simple...

Andreas Weidner wrote on Wed, 09 November 2011 19:27

4. Selecting board objects:

     You created a schematic with 20 opamps, 50 capacitors, 50

     resistors and other stuff, and now switch to the board: All

     components are placed SOMEWHERE, and, if you zoom to the

     whole board, you cannot even read their names, because the

     texts are too small (due to the sheer number of components

     on screen). If you now want to place all components around

     opamp N1 ONLY using the mouse, you

      - zoom in sufficiently to be able to read all names,

      - pan and search until you find the desired component,

      - click on it, pan back again to where it SHOULD be placed,

      - place it,

      - pan back to search for the NEXT component, etc.

     This works, but takes FOREVER.

     Using the CLI, you

      - zoom (with the mouse!) to the EMPTY area where you

        WANT your opamp to be placed,

      - activate the MOVE command (by typing or via mouse),

      - type 'n1' (+return) in the CLI and can place your part

        immediately. No searching, no panning, no scrolling

        necessary.

      - After placing THAT part, you type the name of the NEXT

        one and can IMMEDIATELY place it.

I've taken this a step further and assigned F12 to do a ratsnest followed

by a unterminated move.  As I'm placing parts I zoom into the are as you

mentioned, hit F12, then type the component designator.  If I just want to

clean up the airwires after moving stuff around, I still hit F12.  The open

MOVE does no harm.

During placement, I have a printed copy of the schematic next to my

keyboard and cross off components as they are placed.  I don't ever have to

look at the Oort cloud of parts around the board to find one.  The only

time I look at it is at the end to see what I missed.

--

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

Hi everybody,

Wow, I didn't expect that many comments to my post. I want however to stress again that my post was intended to help CadSoft understand what are the issues a newcomer is confronted with, when he/she tries the software for the first time. If they want to take any steps to correct (even some of) the issues signaled or not, that is of course their decision.

As I don't want to start a controversy on the forum, I decided to give up the initial impulse to answer all replies. However, I assure you that I read carefully all your suggestions and remarks. Unfortunately, some of you did not even properly understood the problems I raised and replied with superiority implying that I still have to read the manual to grow… not very constructive.

Most of the comments only confirmed that your use of the CLI is the result of Eagle's poor and incomplete GUI implementation. Some of you gave examples of how you can solve some tasks faster using the CLI, but I am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster in the CLI than with a properly designed GUI (by comparison to other CAD programs). Your examples may hold in Eagle, but not in other CAD software. It seems to me that many of the commenters have their horizon limited to Eagle; there are other solutions that are more productive even without a CLI (true, they may cost much more). But I believe that instead of perpetuating an anachronistic paradigm by keeping the CLI alive, CadSoft should rather take the GUI issues seriously and do some radical interface changes to bring Eagle to the state of the art of today's GUI technology.

Best regards,

Lix

PS1: Thanks for those pointing me to the GROUP command. I tried it so many times before, but I missed the final right-click (or ctrl-click) to choose "Change Group". The Help line doesn't mention it, as it does for other group commands.

PS2: Olin, under library management I understand exactly that: creating, modifying, deleting, renaming your own library and parts, see section 8.14 "Library and Part Management" of the Eagle User Manual.

PS3: Reminder: the function keys on most notebooks are accessible via a modifier key (Fn), as the function keys are primarily used for other tasks (screen brightness, volume, keys backlight, etc.). Thus "no deal" with the ASSIGN command.

Hi everybody,

Wow, I didn't expect that many comments to my post. I want however to stress again that my post was intended to help CadSoft understand what are the issues a newcomer is confronted with, when he/she tries the software for the first time. If they want to take any steps to correct (even some of) the issues signaled or not, that is of course their decision.

As I don't want to start a controversy on the forum, I decided to give up the initial impulse to answer all replies. However, I assure you that I read carefully all your suggestions and remarks. Unfortunately, some of you did not even properly understood the problems I raised and replied with superiority implying that I still have to read the manual to grow… not very constructive.

Most of the comments only confirmed that your use of the CLI is the result of Eagle's poor and incomplete GUI implementation. Some of you gave examples of how you can solve some tasks faster using the CLI, but I am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster in the CLI than with a properly designed GUI (by comparison to other CAD programs). Your examples may hold in Eagle, but not in other CAD software. It seems to me that many of the commenters have their horizon limited to Eagle; there are other solutions that are more productive even without a CLI (true, they may cost much more). But I believe that instead of perpetuating an anachronistic paradigm by keeping the CLI alive, CadSoft should rather take the GUI issues seriously and do some radical interface changes to bring Eagle to the state of the art of today's GUI technology.

Best regards,

Lix

PS1: Thanks for those pointing me to the GROUP command. I tried it so many times before, but I missed the final right-click (or ctrl-click) to choose "Change Group". The Help line doesn't mention it, as it does for other group commands.

PS2: Olin, under library management I understand exactly that: creating, modifying, deleting, renaming your own library and parts, see section 8.14 "Library and Part Management" of the Eagle User Manual.

PS3: Reminder: the function keys on most notebooks are accessible via a modifier key (Fn), as the function keys are primarily used for other tasks (screen brightness, volume, keys backlight, etc.). Thus "no deal" with the ASSIGN command.

Am 11.11.2011 10:36, schrieb Andreas Weidner:

>> - If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

>> fine for me as well.

 

EAGLE's default key combinations are a bit lame (nearly nothing is

predefined), but you can do this yourself with 'Optionen -

Tastenbelegung' (or whatever its English representation). As a matter of

fact, I defined

ASSIGN C+Y 'REDO'

ASSIGN C+Z 'UNDO'

which is perhaps what you want. Mind that EAGLE's key combinations are

Sorry, I should have explained in more detail.

Ctrl+Y is assigned to Redo in my installation of Eagle already.

What I wanted to describe was that:

In a previous version of MS Powerpoint I could e.g.

  - import some pictures

  - right mouse click on a picture -> Size

  - Enter e.g. 50%

  - select the next picture

  - Presss Ctrl+Y (Redo) to apply the last action to the selected picture

This has saved me a lot of time when preparing reports (*).

Of course, that won't work with the current selection model that Eagle

has.

One may argue that this still requires more clicks an keys than your

CLI solution, but I think that it would be acceptable for most users as

you can e.g. select with the right hand and hit Ctrl+Y with the left

hand. A left-hand-keyboard plus right-hand-mouse usage concept is what

I'm missing most in Eagle.

The nice thing about a re-do feature is that, if it's implemented

the right way, it can be used 'orthogonally' to other actions.

Therefore it could compensate for some of the features you would loose

with a 'Windows' selection model vs. the current Eagle usage model.

(*) I just checked, and it seems that this feature is no longer

     available  in MS Office 2007. As its such a useful feature, I would

     have expected that more applications would implement it.

See also my post 'Useful keyboard shortcuts' from 2011-07-22 in

'eagle.support.eng'.

Thanks. I picked some of these.

(I did post in that thread also at that time...)

Regards,

Dietmar

Am 10.11.2011 20:22, schrieb Dietmar Schwertberger:

Example 4 "Selecting board objects":

This is addressing a common task costing a lot of time.

His CLI solution is nice, but this is such a standard

task that I would expect to be able to:

- go to the schematic

- select one opamp together with the capacitors etc.

- do e.g right mouse click "Place selection on PCB"

->

- Eagle switches to PCB

- the selected components are hanging at the mouse pointer

- the components are arranged as they were in the schematic

- Shift-Scrollwheel allows to move them closer/apart

- Rest of the functionality as with the MOVE command.

Of course I would expect a warning if a component has been

placed before or even a routed connection.

THAT sounds like a VERY useful function. CadSoft, please put this on the

wish list for EAGLE 6, 7 or 8 - thanks...

The actual implementation shouldn't be really difficult, because EAGLE

can just create a corresponding board group from out of the schematics

group and place it accordingly. There might be some problem in getting

the closer/apart function realised or calculating whether or not a

component already HAS been placed, but these things seem to be surmountable.

Btw. the example of 20 opamps plus caps could probably be solved

even faster with hierarchical design/layout or another easy way of

re-use (e.g. select group of devices; right mouse click "Copy

including layout").

Not really. Most of these are a bunch of small not-repeated filters,

integrators, etc., where neither schematics nor layout can be copied

decently. But of course hierarcgical design WOUL be nice.

- If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

fine for me as well.

EAGLE's default key combinations are a bit lame (nearly nothing is

predefined), but you can do this yourself with 'Optionen -

Tastenbelegung' (or whatever its English representation). As a matter of

fact, I defined

   ASSIGN C+Y 'REDO'

   ASSIGN C+Z 'UNDO'

which is perhaps what you want. Mind that EAGLE's key combinations are

WINDOW specific, which means that it keeps different key combination

lists for its window types (schematic, board, device, symbol, package).

See also my post 'Useful keyboard shortcuts' from 2011-07-22 in

'eagle.support.eng'.

Andreas Weidner

"Olin Lathrop" <eagle@embedinc.com> wrote in message

news:j9h2pk$6uh$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

This is now the second time your whole message was duplicated.  It doesn't

seem to be a problem at element 14 since other users posting from there

don't have their messages duplicated.  Maybe it's a problem here at the

Eagle Central forums.  All I know is I see your message content repeated

in

the message but this doesn't happen from anyone else.

 

Quote:

>> Most of the comments only confirmed that your use of the CLI is the

>> result of Eagle's poor and incomplete GUI implementation.

 

Then you've taken away only what you wanted to hear.

 

Quote:

>> Some of you gave examples of how you can solve faster some tasks, but I

>> am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster with the CLI

>> than with a properly designed GUI

 

But you show no such examples.

I'd really like to ask Olin, what other pc tools do you drill as well as

Eagle? I hope you have some GUI tools you like, so we can have a balanced

discussion. You should  listen to those who have used many other tools, and

Lix is obviously has a broad experience. I all hear you do is defence of

the old style Eagle, and rtfm's..

I dare to say I've probably routed the biggest and most advanced layout in

Eagle (16 layer, HDI type2 with microvias, size 46x42cm, thats >18x16")

alone, for whatever that is worth, and I know both the CLI, ULP programming

and GUI well , and I DO agree with Lix. But I also think the CLI can stay

without causing damage to the GUI. But I believe that as GUI develops, most

users will turn to it.

I hear some crap what a GUI can't do efficiently. Of course a GUI will need

actions where you actually need to type stuff, like precise positions,

selection filters and so on. That is no argument to stay away.

I should also say I love what you can do with the CLI, but I dont like the

structure of it (I guess the CLI has the power of linux shells and all the

drawbacks too). Having to type magic characters (modifiers) to describe

mouse actions is very hacky and shows there was a GUI thought behind it, but

its boiled down to neither fish or bird, if you know what I mean.

Learning these special methods are much harder than a pure way.

Am 10.11.2011 18:48, schrieb Olin Lathrop:

>> Some of you gave examples of how you can solve faster some tasks, but I

>> am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster with the CLI

>> than with a properly designed GUI

 

But you show no such examples.

That's easy.

I found Andreas' post very useful and informative.

Example 4 "Selecting board objects":

This is addressing a common task costing a lot of time.

His CLI solution is nice, but this is such a standard

task that I would expect to be able to:

  - go to the schematic

  - select one opamp together with the capacitors etc.

  - do e.g right mouse click "Place selection on PCB"

->

  - Eagle switches to PCB

  - the selected components are hanging at the mouse pointer

  - the components are arranged as they were in the schematic

  - Shift-Scrollwheel allows to move them closer/apart

  - Rest of the functionality as with the MOVE command.

Of course I would expect a warning if a component has been

placed before or even a routed connection.

Btw. the example of 20 opamps plus caps could probably be solved

even faster with hierarchical design/layout or another easy way of

re-use (e.g. select group of devices; right mouse click "Copy

including layout").

This would save me a lot of time when e.g. doing burn-in boards.

(I understand that hierarchical design is a major task to implement,

  but the "Copy including layout" should be rather easy.)

Example 2 "Starting commands with options":

That's something that I probably will use a lot from now.

But still:

  - I often have wondered why the Change command does not

    include an option to change the value.

  - If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

    fine for me as well.

Having CLI and ULPs for special tasks is very nice.

(E.g. a colleague used to use Eagle to automatically

  create semiconductor bonding diagrams.)

But having to use CLI and/or ULPs for standard tasks is a no-go

for most people.

Regards,

Dietmar

Olin,

I've checked on www.eaglecentral.ca and indeed, some of my messages apear duplicated. But if you check on element14, they are not. I guess there is a problem with the message replication.

Lix

Olin,

I don't see any duplicate message. Please explain.

I don't know what examples you're expecting me to show, I only know that with Accel Technology's P-CAD 2000 (that I use for more than 10 years now), I can do these examples in a very competitive amount of time. P-CAD has no CLI, BTW.

In fact, the project I just finished in Eagle was already done in P-CAD, but I wanted to learn Eagle. I remember I've spent less that three days to finish that project in P-CAD, and over two weeks in Eagle (reading once the whole manual not included!). True, Eagle was new to me while P-CAD I know by heart. It was the same project: drawing the schematic, creating the etherrnal missing parts in the library and laying out the PCB. Only the fact that Eagle runs on the Mac kept me on, otherwise I would have given up rather abruptly (P-CAD is a Windows only affair).

In reality I did not want to compare Eagle with P-CAD because everybody would have said that I use it as a reference (but now you forced me!). No, I don't want Eagle to behave as P-CAD (P-CAD has its own quirks), but I expect it to behave as a modern piece of software.

Regards,

Lix

This is now the second time your whole message was duplicated.  It doesn't

seem to be a problem at element 14 since other users posting from there

don't have their messages duplicated.  Maybe it's a problem here at the

Eagle Central forums.  All I know is I see your message content repeated in

the message but this doesn't happen from anyone else.

Quote:

Most of the comments only confirmed that your use of the CLI is the

result of Eagle's poor and incomplete GUI implementation.

Then you've taken away only what you wanted to hear.

Quote:

Some of you gave examples of how you can solve faster some tasks, but I

am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster with the CLI

than with a properly designed GUI

But you show no such examples.

--

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

Silviu,

Yeah, I just checked it and you're right about changing colors... another unorthodox solution. But I guess this is a minor annoyance compared with the issues I pointed out.

And yes, I second your remark regarding smartphones. To continue your idea, this is what makes Apple so different: you don't need to read any manual when you start for the first time an Apple product, be it a device or a piece of software. Take Aperture for instance, it is a heavy piece of software, however you can almost after the first launch be productive with it. Oh well... but I guess we are now off-topic. Sorry.

Lix

"Lix Paulian" <communitymanager@premierfarnell.com> wrote in message

news:164212043.10141320939678804.JavaMail.jive@flmspu-csapp-02.premierfarnell.com...

Did you try to change the color for Top layer? It is intuitive? What would

you do if I send you a board on 4 layers, all with colors defined in my

Eagle, but not on yours?

There are many more aspects that are counter-intuitive, but well explained

in help (but hey,.. to use a smartphone nobody reads the help before opening

the phone!)

it seems (to me) that Cadsoft tryes to keep the actual customers, without

doing much effort to talk on the new generation language.