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Questions regarding using Eagle

e14 Contributor

Hi everyone.  I finally got a chance to use Eagle and designed my first board with it.  The application is great, but I found myself constantly doing certain things and have not been able to figure out how to better perform certain tasks to be more efficient.

 

For example, when you want to move a group of components, we have to do the following steps:

1). Select the group tool

2). Highlight all the components on the board

3). Click the move tool (if not already selected)

4). Right click on one of the grouped components and select Move Group (which instantly moves the entire group to wherever your mouse pointer is at) - hate that

 

But, after reading some things on the forums and watching some helpful youtube videos, some of those step can be avoided and it works much better.  After selecting the group tool and highlight the components, I can simply hold down the CTRL key and right click on the group to move them.  This was great since it saved a step and was cleaner.

 

Now my questions -

 

1). In Windows if you want to select a bunch of icons on the desktop, you simply click somewhere and drag the mouse to show the "rubber band" and you encompass the icons you want to select.  When releasing the mouse they are all selected.  I want to be able to do this in EAGLE.  I constantly have to go and click the Group tool in the tool window.  I do not see a shortcut key for this.  I wish I could just hold down CTRL in a blank area and start the grouping!  Is there anything like this?

 

2). After I placed my silk screen layer down, I wanted to change some of the text sizes.  I did this by choosing the Object Properties tool clicking on each object one by one and making the changes.  I could not group them and make the change all at once.  I understand that not all grouped objects have the same properties or values, but is there a way to be able to change some of these in a group rather than one by one?

 

3). I used the scroll wheel on my mouse constantly to zoom in and out of my design.  But I cannot get it to pan left, right, up or down.  Also my scroll wheel tilts such that I can scroll left and right with it, but that doesn't work either.  Is there some key I can press such that when my pointer moves beyond the edge of the screen, EAGLE will pan the drawing that way?  Or perhaps a setting to change to get this to work with my mouse?

 

4). How to I make the text "bold" in the silk screen layer?  Changing the size makes it bigger, but changing the Ratio, Line Distance, etc... does not help.

 

Thank you very much for your time.

 

 

Best Regards,


DataCrypt

  • Nelson Lopes wrote on Tue, 27 November 2012 23:52

    For example, when you want to move a group of components, we have to do

    the following steps:

     

    Wow, you're doing this the most difficult way possible.  Learn to use the

    command line, ALT keys, and shortcut keys, and things will go much faster.

     

    Quote:

    1). Select the group tool

     

    Or just ALT-E,G.  It just happens that this can all be done with the left

    hand, so the right hand can be on the mouse.

     

    Quote:

    2). Highlight all the components on the board

     

    Note there are at least two ways to define a group with the mouse.  The

    easiest is simply to drag a rectagle over it.  This is done by holding down

    the left mouse button.  The second is by defining a arbitrary polygon

    around whatever you want to select.  This is done by clicking the left

    mouse button for each new polygon point.  This take a little longer, but is

    the only way to select something that isn't a nice isolated block all by

    itself such that a rectangle wouldn't grab other stuff you don't want in

    the group.

     

    Quote:

    3). Click the move tool (if not already selected)

     

    I just hit F7, which I have set up to issue the MOVE command.  Clicking

    toolbar icons is way too slow, and uses the same mouse that you then want

    to drag the object with, making it even slower.  The toolbar is only for

    people who are used to other programs and think every program should have a

    toolbar.  Every single toolbar action can be accomplished some other way,

    and always faster and simpler.  Just shut off the silly toolbar, put the

    pixels to better use, and operate Eagle faster.

     

    Quote:

    4). Right click on one of the grouped components and select Move Group

    (which instantly moves the entire group to wherever your mouse pointer is

    at) - hate that

     

    You don't right click a particular component.  The right click applies

    whatever the current action is to the group.  Once you get used to running

    Eagle efficiently, you want the move to start immediately.  After all, you

    just one way or another ran the MOVE command, so what is there to wait on

    after selecting a group?  If you don't want it to move, don't run MOVE.  If

    you do want it to move, then it not moving immediately would be really

    annoying.

     

    Quote:

    1). In Windows if you want to select a bunch of icons on the desktop,

    you simply click somewhere and drag the mouse to show the "rubber band"

    and you encompass the icons you want to select.  When releasing the

    mouse they are all selected.  I want to be able to do this in EAGLE.  I

    constantly have to go and click the Group tool in the tool window.  I do

    not see a shortcut key for this.

     

    Like I said, ALT-E,G, or you can set up your own shortcut if you want.  I

    find ALT-E,G fast enough and doable with one hand so I haven't been

    motivated to set up a shortcut for it.  I have better things for my

    function keys to be doing.

     

    Quote:

    2). After I placed my silk screen layer down, I wanted to change some

    of the text sizes.

     

    CHA SIZ , then click on whatever text you want to change to that

    size.  If you want to change multiple text strings, you just click them in

    succession.  Once CHANGE SIZE is active, it remains active until you

    explicitly end it or issue another command.

     

    Quote:

    3). I used the scroll wheel on my mouse constantly to zoom in and out

    of my design.  But I cannot get it to pan left, right, up or down.

     

    You need to read the manual.  Hold down the center mouse button to pan.

     

    Quote:

    4). How to I make the text "bold" in the silk screen layer?

     

    Eagle doesn't have a "bold" setting by itself.  Instead, it has a "ratio"

    setting.  That is the ratio of character line thickness to the character

    size.  A larger ratio makes the text more bold.  Yes, I think "ratio" is a

    dumb name for this too because many things are a ratio and it doesn't say

    anything about text.  Another thing to watch out for is that the ratio is

    actually in percent, but nothing in the documentation tells you that.

     

    Eagle is a great program, but many of the names were very poorly chosen,

    and the documentation can sometimes confuse more than illuminate.  There

    are definitely things you have to get used to, but once you do, you can

    really fly thru operations.

    --

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