>An NDA for a service pack? What's up with that? Phooey on that! What are >they trying to do, fix bugs without admitting which bugs were fixed?
Only the beta of the SP is under NDA, and this has always been the case. Obviously, and as per Altium standard practice, I expect the SP will be freely available without restriction once fully tested. Any comments on the 'good bits' are my words, not Altium's. Obviously if many people champion the same things Altium put in their literature, then Altium are on the right track!! You don't have to use the query language to do global changes - in fact the query language can't directly affect an object, its just a selection tool. To make changes to objects you need to use the list box - this is filled whatever selection method you use, including clicking. If you want to use code to directly affect objects, then you need to learn the scripting language. Find Similar Objects (FSO) is a good way of selecting in order to make globals changes and bares a close resemblance to the old 'global change' dialogue in 99se. I don't think faster database links are not a direct result of having a newer PC. Ok, last time I tried a database update on 1000+ components in 99se it took about a day (8+ hours). The same update in DXP would probably take about 30s (though I've not tried it). I don't think even the improved PC performance can account for nearly a 1000 fold increase in performance. (333MHz P3 to 2.8GHz Athlon FX51) In fact I'd argue that the performance of DXP in some areas is not as good as 99se. j. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bagotronix Tech Support Sent: 19 November 2004 17:02 To: Protel EDA Discussion List Subject: Re: [PEDA] 99se vs. DXP vs. 2004.. Need a sample offeelingsaboutdiff. and reasons for moving or not to the next > I'm not surprised you don't have SP2 loaded, if you did you would not be talking about it publicly as you would be under NDA!! You would be advised to have SP1 loaded though. > An NDA for a service pack? What's up with that? Phooey on that! What are they trying to do, fix bugs without admitting which bugs were fixed? > P2004 is 1000% better than 99se. In the words of my very picky colleague here "At last, Protel is just about usable" when talking of P2004 SP1. Wow, those are inspiring endorsements...NOT! 1000% better is 10x better. Sounds more emotional than scientific to me. Just about usable? So if the product is 10x better and it's now just about usable, that doesn't speak too well of the previous version (1/10th usable?). > Not moving because you are scared of the query language is a bit like being scared of the dark as a child, its just an unknown and not that bad really. Darkness can cloak a multitude of sins... > There are more improvements than I can list, but I'll have a go. > > Integration of Schematic, PCB, Libraries, CAM Don't we have this already in 99se and earlier? > PCB Editing - lots of improvements > PCB routing - automatic fan out, situs is getting better > Schematic - lots of improvements > Better File Management The above could have been taken from any Altium sales literature. Very vague statements about how it is better than the previous version - I have been hearing this kind of MarketingSpeak ever since I can remember (and I can remember back to the DOS days!). > Multiple Channels - turns one of our 99se designs at 60+ pages into 12 pages under DXP OK, that sounds like a geniune improvement. > .ddb is dead - move to DXP for this alone (too many corrupted .ddb loose lots of data too often) 99se lets you use the Windows File System instead of DDB, if you choose. > Integration with revision control - EXCELLENT (and impossible with .ddb)!! If it works well, that's good. > Query language, you can do things here that would have been impossible in 99se But from what others have said here, no easy way to make changes on a group of objects without using the query language. I can't say whether the new query language is good or bad, having not yet tried DXP. But there also needs to be an easy way to select objects, as easy as it is in 99se. > Global editing - in 99se is was downright dangerous. Global editing is by definition risky. You better save a copy of your work before you do it. And check the results afterward to make sure that's what you wanted. > Project management The definition of this changes depending on who you ask. 99se has project management, in that it provides a container for your project files. > Multiple Projects I have multiple projects open in 99se all the time. > Database links (99se database links were so slow they are useless) Don't know, never used them. Are the database links in DXP faster? If so, I wonder where the speed boost came from? Are you running DXP on a new, faster PC than 99se was running on? > Sadly, even in SP1 there are still features missing that we've all been waiting for a LONG time. > Flexible Busses > Pin & Gate swapping > Channels of channels Pin & Gate swapping, ha! That was in PCB 2.8. I still use 2.8 on rare occasions when I need to do manual pin/gate swapping to optimize track layout for 2-layer boards. I have a feeling you will never see pin/gate swapping again. It is probably too difficult to write the software to support pin/gate swapping for a "tightly integrated" package such as DXP (or 99se). The problem is how to make the "on-the-fly" PCB netlist changes automagically back-propagate to the schematic. Unless you connect all your swappable pins with netlabels (instead of wires), the SCH software would have to autoroute wires between pins. While this is possible in theory, it would be a major programming effort, and the aesthetics of the resulting schematic would be unacceptable. Now, if the pin/gate swap feature were to require that swappable pins be connected only by netlabels, the software could easily back-propagate the netlist change to the schematic. In fact, I adopted this technique years ago (back in 2.8 days). Even though I had to manually edit the schematic to match the resulting PCB, editing was easy because there was no re-drawing of wires needed. I just had to edit the netlabels on the pins that got swapped. That was a wierd design flow: SCH -> PCB -> SCH. But it works for those designs that require it. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason Morgan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Protel EDA Discussion List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 4:29 AM Subject: RE: [PEDA] 99se vs. DXP vs. 2004.. Need a sample of feelingsaboutdiff. and reasons for moving or not to the next > Hi, > > I'm not surprised you don't have SP2 loaded, if you did you would not be talking about it publicly as you would be under NDA!! You would be advised to have SP1 loaded though. > > If your only hurdle to P2004 is the query language, then I suggest you just get used to it. > > P2004 is 1000% better than 99se. In the words of my very picky colleague here "At last, Protel is just about usable" when talking of P2004 SP1. > > Not moving because you are scared of the query language is a bit like being scared of the dark as a child, its just an unknown and not that bad really. > > There are more improvements than I can list, but I'll have a go. > > Integration of Schematic, PCB, Libraries, CAM > PCB Editing - lots of improvements > PCB routing - automatic fan out, situs is getting better > Schematic - lots of improvements > Multiple Channels - turns one of our 99se designs at 60+ pages into 12 pages under DXP > .ddb is dead - move to DXP for this alone (too many corrupted .ddb loose lots of data too often) > Integration with revision control - EXCELLENT (and impossible with .ddb)!! > Query language, you can do things here that would have been impossible in 99se > Global editing - in 99se is was downright dangerous. > Project management > Multiple Projects > Better File Management > Database links (99se database links were so slow they are useless) > > Some things are still coming along.... slowly > 3D View and mechanical cad interchange (so slowly, I use 3DView by QualECAD - its still better) > > And there are some things are (for me) are completely useless > FPGA > > > There are some really nice features coming up too....;) If I weren't under NDA I could list one or two that would benefit your work directly. > > Sadly, even in SP1 there are still features missing that we've all been waiting for a LONG time. > Flexible Busses > Pin & Gate swapping > Channels of channels > > All this from a long term user of Protel and a person who has been most critical of Protel over the years. > > regs, > jason. > ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
