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Natively editing Eagle designs

harvie256

Hi

 

With the latest update from Altium to CS 1.4 I'm quite excited by your headline inclusion:

 

"Chief among these improvements for CircuitStudio 1.4 is support for natively editing Eagle designs"

New in CircuitStudio | Online Documentation for Altium Products

 

Please give details of how I Natively edit Eagle designs, i.e. in their original format.  E.g. A customer gives me an Eagle design, I edit it, and give it back to them in the same Eagle format they gave it to me in.

 

At the moment all I can see is the ability to import an Eagle design which converts it to and saves as a native CS file format, which as you can understand is not natively editing an Eagle design.

Parents

  • Hi harvie256,

     

    Thank you for raising this. It's not a round trip, rather it now supports direct opening of Eagle designs and projects, to make importing smoother. Here's what the feature does now. Besides the many improvements to the translation itself, the following improvements are added for convenience and speedier import:

     

    • File > Open Document with an EagleTm schematic *.sch file and it is automatically translated to a *.SchDoc file
      • previously required an existing Project and running File > Import, manually choose from list of importers

     

    • File > Open Document with an EagleTm PCB *.pcb file and it is automatically translated to a *.CSPcbDoc file
      • previously required an existing Project and running File > Import, manually choose from list of importers

     

    • File > Open Library is a new command in CircuitStudio 1.4 that is explicitly for opening libraries.
      • With an EagleTm library *.lbr file, prompts to Intall or "Open and Edit"
      • previously required an existing Project and running File > Import, manually choose from list of importers
      • The new Install option automatically translates libraries to *.SchLib and *.PcbLib within its own new Library Project *.LibPkg then compiles and installs an Integrated Library *.IntLib

     

    • Libraries panel > Available Libraries, Installed tab > Install from File automatically translates libraries to *.SchLib and *.PcbLib within its own new Library Project *.LibPkg then compiles and installs an Integrated Library *.IntLib

     

    • File > Open EAGLE Project *.EPF automatically creates a PCB Project *.PrjPcb and imports the EagleTm files referenced in the EagleTm project file.
      • *.EPF fils were previously ignored.

     

    Best regards,

     

    James Harriman

    Altium

  • in reply to jamesharrimanaltium

    Thanks for clarifying James.

     

    I thought the marketing speak was a too good to be true.  I've always read "native editing" as meaning actually editing the files, not "we have an importer for that".

     

    I'm very eager to hear any updates you have on the CS 1.4 rotate bug, as I'm currently working out a strategy for rolling back to 1.3 whilst trying to keeping all my settings and not losing a day's productivity.  I feel this is a show stopping bug that should have stopped the release.

Reply
  • in reply to jamesharrimanaltium

    Thanks for clarifying James.

     

    I thought the marketing speak was a too good to be true.  I've always read "native editing" as meaning actually editing the files, not "we have an importer for that".

     

    I'm very eager to hear any updates you have on the CS 1.4 rotate bug, as I'm currently working out a strategy for rolling back to 1.3 whilst trying to keeping all my settings and not losing a day's productivity.  I feel this is a show stopping bug that should have stopped the release.

Children
  • in reply to harvie256

    Hi harvie256,

     

    The work arounds are quite easy, especially for a single component, just de-select it, but I agree it is annoying for those people with space bar muscle memory to rotate components, it is something done often and without thinking! We'll get back to you about the schedule as soon as possible, but we're working on a fix in the mean time.

     

    Regarding any installing, CircuitStudio installers are very powerful and flexible because multiple installations of different or same versions can be done on the same machine.

     

    When you run the installer, it checks for the following:

     

    1. In an existing installation of CircuitStudio is found the installer offers to "Update existing installation" and lists the versions it finds. This mode directs it overwrite the existing installation so you have the same number of installed product after it's done. The licensing and settings are preserved for use with the updated version.

     

    The other mode is "New Installation". If the system is clean, this will be the default behavior. The installer will install a fresh installation. The extra installation of CircuitStudio is independent from any existing installations and will need to be licensed separately. Reactivate the license and avoid running both instances at the same time if using the same license. See notes 2. and 3. below.

     

    2. If the paths such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Altium\CS14 are used. If so, it prevents you from using them again, so you may add extra text to the end, or choose a different path. Changing both paths allows the additional software installation to occur on the same system. Any extra text you add will be used to modify the name of the Icon (Windows shortcut) on the Windows Start menu. E.g. "CircuitStudio (in CS13)" when I installed it alongside my CS14.

     

    3. If an existing installation of CircuitStudio is found, the settings are presented for importation. Press Cancel if you don't wish to import them, so you have a clean installation. Normally I recommend starting clean and setting up preferences manually so you know exactly what you're getting vs. the defaults.

     

    Best regards,

     

    James Harriman

    Altium

  • in reply to jamesharrimanaltium

    Thanks James, that helpful on the install setup.

     

    For me it's not the single component move so much (albeit that will catch me out probably 20 -100x a day), but rather when pre-laid out "modules" are re-arranged on the board.

     

    I do it a lot as I have hunks of functionality (e.g. standard microcontroller with all supporting caps, xtal, USB broken out, etc) stored in separate files I bring into a design when a customer needs something that's often just the same recipe with a different sensor/output.

     

    Yes you can rotate then move, but that is vastly slower when shuffling chunks around.