[sdiy] What's your fav PCB package?

[Ingo Debus]

Am 16.08.2005 um 20:21 schrieb Rainer Buchty:

>> 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.
>>
>
> It's probably a matter of taste, but I prefer it that way. If I  
> want to
> delete something, then it's usually more than one thing (component,
> trace, bus...) and I'd rather not want to select-delete, select-delete
> etc.
>

This could be taken care of if more than one thing at a time could be  
selected. Click on the first item, then shift-click on the others.  
Finally delete them all at once with one command.
Or the delete function could be done with the keyboard (backspace  
key). With the right hand on the mouse and the left hand on the  
keyboard you can delete several things quickly.

Pretty much like working with a sequencer program. Agreed, Logic,  
Cubase et al have an "Eraser" tool too, but I never use it.


> Same if I want to move things.

This could be done with the select function too. Click once to  
select, click and drag to move.

I'm aware that Eagle has a pretty long history and started as a DOS  
program. Perhaps that's why it's a bit unconventional by today's  
standards.

>
>> 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.
>>
>
> AFAIK it shouldn't work with delete (maybe a bug?),

I meant Ripup, as Achim already mentioned.
You have to click on an edge of the polygon to switch the flood fill  
display off. If there's no edge on the screen because of a high zoom  
factor, you first have to zoom out.

> but agreed,
> overloading the Ratsnest function is a bit counterintuitive... Even
> worse, I haven't found a way to get it of the flood fill other than
> either load/close/save it or move the flood-area boundaries and  
> resize.

I don't understand... "get it of the flood fill", what do you mean?


By the way, when you use flood fill for ground planes on double-sided  
boards, do you route ground traces first, or do you rely on on the  
flood fill that it will "somehow" connect all the ground pins? On  
dense boards the ground traces can get quirky this way, and it  
becomes difficult to follow the ground paths.

Ingo