Dave schrieb:
>
> Markus Zingg wrote:
> > You guys made me curious. I downloaded and tried Diptrace out (went
> > through the tutorial etc.). I do not agree that it is soooo user
> > friendly compared to Eagle (as strange as this may sounds). Don't get
> > this wrong. It's truly ok for the money but for instance, I
> particularly
> > find it clumsey to assign values to parts and make this visible in the
> > schematic entry program. You really have to go through too many mouse
> > clicks for such a frequent operation. I liked some other features
> though
> > (i.e. some more intelligence moving around parts that are already have
> > connections etc.). What I also miss (ok, might be that I just don't
> know
> > how to do it) is the ability to enter purchase department oriented
> > information for parts. I'm not totally fluent in english, so please
> bear
> > with me when I now try to explain what I mean with more words than
> > otherwise needed. Anyways, from personal experience I just know that
> > having the information ready to actually order parts for a production
> > run of a design is a painfull, time consuming process. I expect from a
> > modern CAD package some support here. Like being able to define
> > (multiple) suppliers for a part, entering price per quantity
> > information, datasheet URLs etc. etc. and having a process thereafter
> > that allows to make intelligent orders. Eagle has solved this with a
> ULP
> > (but IMHO that should be part of the base product but that's a
> > discussion we had already in the past).
> >
> > What I also miss is a similar feature like the ULPs in Eagle. Well, one
> > should be able to "add" individual functionality to a package as it's
> > possible with Eagle. Diptrace does have the ASCII export feature which
> > could be used to modify the database and reimport, but that seems a
> > little complicated let alone the fact that the data format does not
> seem
> > to be documented (as oposed to Eagle). Doing layout work also is not as
> > easy as it is in Eagle.
> >
> > However, I DO like the fact though that this seems to be a competition
> > for Eagle and I would recommend the package to someone looking for a
> > good package on a budget. Besides it seems to be a relatively new
> > product, so we may will see progress in the future.
> >
> > Just my 2ยข of course.
> >
> > Markus
> >
> >
> >
> Markus,
> I hope the more experienced people answer this as I am just a beginner
> at this so my needs are quite minimal at the present time. This is more
> of a hobby for me. Single sided boards with less than 250 pins (for now
> anyhow) and NEVER more than a 2-sided board. Maybe once I learn my way
> around I will see what you mean and then I can use Eagle but for now it
> looks like DipTrace will get me etching boards quicker.
> My 2 cents :)
> Dave
>
>
As mentioned, Diptrace seems really ok for the price and seems a good
solution given your requierements. You should not forget that Eagle in
it's full unlimitted version costs 2 - 3 times the price, and Eagle also
is a package at the lower end of the spectrum. It just was a little
bummer for me to see that a modern, aparently freshly developped package
makes you go through loops just when you want to assign a 49k value to a
resistor and would like to have visible feedback of this in the
schematic but otherwise is having features which compared to this are
more in the "bells and whistles" area. Never the less, I truly wish the
people behind Diptrace all the sucess they can get cause I really think
that CadSoft entered a state where aparently bigger parts of that
company seem to be in a long lasting nice cosy winter sleep. They truly
need a harsh wake up call!
Markus