Patrick Maupin wrote:
> I think this went out fine the first time; I'm just not sure that > anybody has a good answer. Thanks for the reply. I just figured that if the answer was "no", which is apparently is, someone would have said so. >I haven't really used the PCB program yet, > but if it's anything like eeschema, it is, in some ways, still a bit > immature. For example, in eeschema, trying to cut a schematic section > from one page and paste it onto another page is a bit more complicated > than it ought to be, and will lose all your reference designators. So far I've not run into any show-stoppers with the schematic editor. Some things are clunky (symbol management being the worst) but nothing that I can't live with/work around. Pcbnew is something different. > > I saw that you are coming from expresspcb.com, and I share your pain. > expresspcb has a nice package for laying out boards (with no real DRC) > -- I tell my co-workers it's a "drawing program." Their prices are > reasonable, they boards are fine, and if it weren't for their paranoia > that locks your data up, I would consider them perfect for small > designs. For one thing, your current issue of "move a trace to > another layer" is, as you know, a single button press in expresspcb. > For another thing, components (KiCad "modules") can be made on the > fly. Lay down a few pads and some silk, and then say "hey, I want to > use this again -- make a component out of it for me." Simple and > effective. Absolutely true. I can't believe that pcbnew doesn't have the "move the trace to another layer" feature. I mean, how do you do a complicated board without that? I hate to say it but this looks like a show-stopper for me. > > Personally, though, I think that the kicad developers have a better > shot at creating the sort of UI that I would like to see than the > (otherwise more mature) geda project. Every time I've played with > geda, I come away mystified. At least with kicad, I have gotten some > useful work done in a reasonable amount of time. Same boat here. I've spent the better part of the last 2 months looking for a replacement EDA program/suit to replace ExpressPCB. I've been completely happy with them for my short turn, low volume work but now I have some boards that are headed to production and being tied to one vendor just isn't going to cut it. Anyway, I can't believe just how awful the UIs on some other EDA programs are. Do the programmers ever actually use the stuff? I've installed Eagle three times now, thinking that it just had to be me and not the program. It's not me. That's a hideous UI. KiCAD is so good right up to when one of the warts intrudes. I don't understand the deviation from the standard Windows/Gnome/K conventions such as having a left click select the object and a left click and hold drag the object but I can get used to the KiCAD way, I think. > > So I'm moving slowly towards kicad. For now, I'm still using > expresspcb on a few boards, but I am doing the schematics in eeschema. > I have written a utility (available at kipy.org) that will dump my > kicad schematic into a netlist that expresspcb can use. At least then > I can visually check inside expresspcb that all the pins on each net > are hooked up properly according to my schematic. > > So long term, I think they will get there. Short term, though, the UI > probably isn't as productive as what you are used to. I'm afraid that you're right. FWIW, here are the big warts that I see. * awful library and footprint management. ExpressPCB's method is the way to do it. Let the user group pads and lines together and designate it as a new footprint. * Use Windows/Gnome copy and paste. * Have drop-down tables of drill sizes and trace widths. Not just the last ones used but all the common ones. Allow the table to be edited, of course but don't force me to go through several menus just to change trace widths. I have about half a dozen trace widths that I use most of the time, ranging from the 0.014 for normal signals to 0.150 for high amperage circuits. I should NOT have to type those in anew on every layout. AT LEAST, let me type in the new size in the drop-down box instead of having to several menus deep. * Same for pad sizes. Default to the way ExpressPCB does it with combinations of pads and drills but allow the table to be edited. Preferably similar to the EQU files that can be maintained with a text editor. * in the footprint library editor, the default when creating a new object is for the pad to be only on the copper layer. No component side and no silk screen or solder mask. That's hideously awful. I ended up building a whole library of Molex 0.177 connectors before I discovered this default. The default wouldn't be so bad except that the pad editing screen isn't shown until a pad is edited. * The programs really need config files where many of these default behaviors can be changed. The existing config files are a start but much work is needed. * Not being able to pick ANY library in the library editor and elsewhere. Having a configured set of libraries is vital but there needs to be a button or something that lets me add to the set at any point. * A footprint browser is badly needed. * The footprint editor's print function is completely broken. I wish that I was up to date enough on programming to contribute to fixing these problems but I'm not. I'm an embedded programmer who works in assembler and plain old C. So all I can do is suggest and ask. I'm new to the list and KiCAD so I don't want to start off sounding all negative. I really appreciate the work that has gone into the package. Hell of a lot better than most commercial packages. Thanks guys. John -- John DeArmond Tellico Plains, Occupied TN http://www.neon-john.com <-- email from here http://www.johndearmond.com <-- Best damned Blog on the net PGP key: wwwkeys.pgp.net: BCB68D77
