Have a question about CadSoft EAGLE?  Ask our Expert, Richard! (Archive)

I have made a SCH to demonstrate the problem: in the LBR I have moved

symbols by 1/2 of standard grid. Try to delete any resistor in SCH and then

invoke back - in this case it seems to work wrongly again, but after the

mouse click the gate snaps to the grid. In my original schematic it didn'

snap and was placed off-grid

Hi Dusan,

currently I have no idea what the reason could be. I will do some further testing and try it with version 5 files.

If possible, you could send me your example files.

Regards,
Richard

I'm pretty sure that the problem is a race between which window gets  focus and I'm not surprised that there is a difference between systems.  It could be Ubuntu vs. SuSE or just machine differences.

Jerry,

could you modify your command line, so that the schematic file is explicitely loaded before the printing starts?

It looks like this then:

eagle  -C "edit .sch; print 0.59 SHEETS ALL LANDSCAPE PAPER Letter FILE .pdf;" mydesign.sch

I will try this on my Ubuntu machine as well.....

Regards,
Richard

Hi Richard,

I am using SuSE 12.1 here and use the same command line from a bash window. It opens the EAGLE Control Panel, the schematic editor and then it prints. In the schematic I can see the message Printing... done in the status bar of the schematic window......

 

Just while writing this text.....................................

Is there a project loaded whan you start EAGLE? This could be the difference.

Close your project frist and then quit EAGLE. So with the next start it will not open a project automatically, but only load the schematic (plus board) and do the printing.....

 

By the way:

You could also start EAGLE form the command line with option -S which specifies a script file that will be executed. There we have the possibility to exectue a number of commands automatically.

I see the Printing... done message in the status bar of the board layout window, not the schematic window.

I'm pretty sure that the problem is a race between which window gets focus and I'm not surprised that there is a difference between systems. It could be Ubuntu vs. SuSE or just machine differences.

I did have a project open, though Eagle was not running (I had exited with  Alt-A). I tried again after closing all of the editor windows before exiting and I get the same results- a copy of the board layout in the PDF file.

Since you don't see quite the same problem as I have, maybe a solution would be found by asking why you don't get the board layout printed to the PDF file.

I will start looking into the -S command.

Thanks,

...jerry

Hi Richard,

I have made a SCH to demonstrate the problem: in the LBR I have moved

symbols by 1/2 of standard grid. Try to delete any resistor in SCH and then

invoke back - in this case it seems to work wrongly again, but after the

mouse click the gate snaps to the grid. In my original schematic it didn'

snap and was placed off-grid - and if the offset is small, it  may be seen

as connected properly.. Don't know why, perhaps besause everything was

updated from 5.x, while here in the example everything was done already in

6.1. But also here some problem is visible as the gate is attached to the

cursor with the half-grid offset.

Hi Richard,

I can try to recover it - both .sch and .lbr were imported from 5.11, this

may have had an influence. I have fixed the problem by placing gates on grid

in library. But just now I am too busy to investigate this minor problem,

because I am working on the recovery of the next unexpected consistency

loss. This time it occured after some signal deletes:

none of the deleted signal was connected to GND (part U$1 is a supply gate

far away from edited area), only few of them to VCC. This consistency loss

is at least fifth instance of this problem. I am working on different

computers in office and at home and this problem occurs on both.

Attachments:

Just now I found, that when I invoke the gate, which is not on grid in  DEV editor, it is placed into SCH with the same offset (off grid), while  in 5.11 it was placed correctly on its origin by INVOKE.

Hi Dusan,

tried what you described, but I can't reproduce it. I changed the 7400 device in the library so that the gates in the device editor are off grid. When I am placing the gates  in the schematic they are placed in the current grid. When I use INVOKE it works the same way. The gate will be placed on the current grid.

It behaves the same as in Version 5.11.

Could you please check this again. If it does not work for you, please send me an example.

Schematic and library file, please.

Best regards,
Richard

Hi Jerry,

I don't understand why it is not working on your side. I am using SuSE 12.1 here and use the same command line from a bash window. It opens the EAGLE Control Panel, the schematic editor and then it prints. In the schematic I can see the message Printing... done in the status bar of the schematic window......

Just while writing this text.....................................

Is there a project loaded whan you start EAGLE? This could be the difference.

Close your project frist and then quit EAGLE. So with the next start it will not open a project automatically, but only load the schematic (plus board) and do the printing.....

By the way:

You could also start EAGLE form the command line with option -S which specifies a script file that will be executed. There we have the possibility to exectue a number of commands automatically.

Regards,
Richard

Hi Richard,

frankly, just now I regret that I have upgraded to 6.1., because this version appears much less stable and predictable than 5.11 and there is no way back because of data incompatibility... Just now I found, that when I invoke the gate, which is not on grid in DEV editor, it is placed into SCH with the same offset (off grid), while in 5.11 it was placed correctly on its origin by INVOKE. The ADD command works correctly. It can be fixed in the library, but I think the position of the gate in the DEVICE editor should not have any effect.

I also have lost consistency several times without any visible reason and any warning (only the indicator down right, which I always mentioned only few minutes after the loss occured and wasn't already able to trace it) and had to correct mistakes manually - very annoying and I don't remember similar problem in previous version.

Hi Richard,

The problem has changed slightly this morning-

Yesterday I got started on the associated .brd file and when I ran the print command this morning it printed the board drawing and exited.

Three windows opened, the control panel, the schematic, and the board windows. The command ran, apparently in the board window, and then all three windows closed.

If there were a way to tell eagle to run the -C argument in a specific window, then the command would be working well enough for my purposes. Is there an argument to eagle, or an addition to the -C argument that can direct the command to be run in a specific window?

Thanks,

...jerry

Hi Richard,

The problem occurs even with the demo1.sch drawing provided with 6.1.0 in the projects/examples/tutorial/ directory. Let me know if you still want me to send a schematic.

There are no other messages, either in the xterm window where I ran the command or as a graphical dialog.

Looking a bit closer I see that the Control panel window gets focus rather than the schematic editor window. As soon as I click on the schematic editor window it gets focus and the print command runs.

Is there an alternative that does not pop-up any graphical windows? Or is there a way to specify which windows pop-up and which get focus?

Thanks,

...jerry