[sdiy] What's your fav PCB package?

[Ingo Debus]

Am 16.08.2005 um 08:04 schrieb Tim Ressel:

>  Eagle looks pretty good. I'm giving
> it a test-spin right now.
>

I've been working with Eagle for a short while now and have finished  
one PCB so far, so really not an expert talking here.

I find Eagle's philosophy a bit quirky.
In PCB layout programs I'm used to (and in other apps as well) that  
you FIRST select something (a component, a trace etc) and THEN decide  
what to do with it (move, rotate, delete...). In Eagle this is not  
possible. You FIRST have to select a tool (move, delete...) and THEN  
click on the thing (trace, component) you want the tool apply to.
This often causes errors, which can be fatal with the delete tool. I  
often delete something else than I wanted to. You have to click near  
the reference point of the object to be deleted, and if another  
object's reference point is closer enough the wrong object gets  
deleted. Without the Undo function the program would be completely  
useless.
To make things worse, the delete tool is also used for something  
which hasn't much to do with deleting, Eagle's flood fill feature.  
You switch display (flood fill on or off) with the delete and the  
ratsnest tool. It's really just a display switch, the flood fill  
isn't created or deleted this way. If you want to switch the display  
off and don't hit the edge of the flood-filled area close enough,  
something can get deleted instead. If you didn't hit ANYTHING close  
enough, nothing happens. So when you intended to switch the flood- 
fill display off and failed, usually you don't know if something got  
deleted or not. What now? Doing an Undo would probably Undo your last  
intended action....
It seems to me they piggy-backed the flood-fill display commands onto  
some other unrelated tools because they did not want to introduce new  
ones when they introduced the flood fill.

Another thing that annoys me is that Eagle deletes traces  
automatically on the PCB when I delete connections in the schematic  
and both the schematic and the board window are open. This was  
obviously done in good intention, to keep the schematic and the board  
consistent when ever possible. But often I just want to tidy up the  
schematic a bit AFTER the trace is already completed. Tidying up a  
schematic is often much more difficult and sometimes impossible when  
only moving, rotating, mirroring, but not deleting and redrawing is  
allowed. One can always close the board window before editing the  
schematic, but this is easily forgotten. At least they could have  
added an alert, like "Connection removed, do you also want to delete  
the trace?".

It's probably just a matter of getting used to it. As I wrote, almost- 
newbie to Eagle here.

On the other hand, Eagle has some great features. I like it that one  
can zoom in and out quickly with the mouse's scroll wheel.

Ingo