Documentation

Try View | Shortcuts to see a general list of shortcuts. For action specific keys hit F1 whilst executing a command (e.g. routing).

There is no master PDF available for the documentation.

Are there plans to actually finish the online docs?  Some of those pages say they were last updated in 2016, thats somewhat worrisome.  I'm trying to decide if I want to actually buy Circuit Studio and already having a hard time justifying the time spent learning something new when I could be spending that time designing in something I already know.  Even if what I already know is less powerful.

I don't like the idea of relying on someone else's generosity on a forum if I question in the basic operation of the app that could easily be answered by an actual complete user manual.  though I will say the 2 questions I've asked in the past couple of days have been answered pretty promptly.

Anyone else go through this while evaluating Circuit Studio?  Did you find it was worth it spending the time?

Being new to CS and no experience with AD, I have to agree that the CS documentation is lacking. I have found that with careful googling you can find the documentation for AD18 and that helps fill in the missing bits. Of course AD does things that CS doesn't - I got burned there in the beginning by not realizing that the Vault in CS is not like Vault in AD. (I tried and gave up with CS Vault. Just get the parts from the libraries on Altium's website).

Not to defend its current state but when I was looking at competing packages CS is way ahead of many other packages out there. So if you take the glass half full view then it's not so bad.

For me the biggest missing piece (besides the blank pages) is a user guide that illustrates how to do things efficiently. The videos and the one written example don't go in to enough "real world" examples (i.e. they're great for the first project but you quickly outgrow them. Also videos aren't helpful since you can't search them when looking for answers, though if a transcript is included then they are useful).

I can think of two examples that bug me everyday (posting in case someone knows how to do these):

1. flipping between the front and back view in PCB - is there a key for that? If so then why doesn't hovering over the button tell me? F1 brings up a help but doesn't show a keyboard short cut.  But that seems like such a basic thing I can't believe having to hit the ribbon button is the only way. 
2. shutting off grid snap (sch, pcb, libs, etc editors) when moving things - you would expect to find that explained on this page: Snap Guide Manager | Online Documentation for Altium Products  but the page is only a reference to the dialog versus having a more user friendly "How to do X" section with it. The G key will cycle through values but a simple on/off would be useful.

I still am looking for a list or something that explains all of the keyboard shortcuts that I can print out - I find the context sensitive list (enabled from the view->shortcuts) doesn't help because you have to scroll it and you can't do that when you're in some mode that is manipulating things. Hitting F1 doesn't seem to provide the answers either.

The shortcut for flipping the board is "F", there is a list of shortcuts using the View | Shortcuts button.

Or one can edit the file AdvSch.rcs (or AdvPcb.rcs) with a text editor and change the shortcuts to whatever one desire. You can even add more of them, more than there are available right now ...

Hi Peter,

Oh, *now* I see it in the list.  Still I would argue that hovering over the button should show the shortcut key (it does on some things) and/or hitting F1 should take you to documentation that includes the short cut keys (F1 takes you to Board Viewing Tools | Online Documentation for Altium Products  but there's no mention that there's a shortcut key associated with Flip).

IMHO for getting started a printed short cut list where you can scan it quickly would really help when getting started with the package, and even with its use. I probably use a half dozen different packages in a week and everyone is different so I gave up long ago trying to remember what keys do what in each.

I should amend my earlier comment about "G". That only seems to work in schematics. I can't figure out how to change/shut off the grid in layout via a short cut key (why wouldn't they be the same?). I've probably overlooked the obvious again.

Thanks,

Agreed that it isn't always easy to figure out the shortcuts, and the occasional ribbon button does actually have the wrong hint which adds to the confusion. The suggestion to edit your own shortcuts is a good one if you are comfortable doing this.

The blank reference pages drive me insane. If they are empty and won't be filled with content delete them so they don't appear in searches!

Never mind the fact that most Google searches including Circuit Studio call up help for AD, presumably to remind us what CS can't do.