CadSoft Eagle v7.5 Preview

[rx8pilot]

I got an email invite to attend a webinar on the latest Eagle v7.5 on Thursday Oct 22 11A Pacific.

I will attend, but my hopes and expectations are rather low. Wondering if anyone has any inside scoop on what to expect. For the most part, I am saving my upgrade fees to move to Altium Designer even though it is vastly more costly up front. I believe in the long run, Altium is a lower cost solution for professional designing as it appears to have the features to get the job done faster and better. Many moons ago, I used low-end CAD for mechanical engineering. One day in 1998 I got frustrated enough to drop $7k for SolidWorks and my life and business got a massive boost. I have been hoping that Eagle would take some real steps, but it seems they are stuck. Maybe Thursday will reveal some real progress, maybe not.

Anyone going to take the time to check this out?

[jc101]

Not had an invite yet, but be interesting to know what it's all about.

[BloodyCactus]

they spent a LONG time to go from 6 to 7 with no changes. For such a short time to go from 7 to 7.5 i expect NO change beyond version number. maybe the colour on some icons perhaps?.

[rx8pilot]

I did not bother to switch from 6 to 7 since there was nothing even slightly compelling.

would be nice to see actionable improvement in routing, new part creation, maybe take the top 20 ULPs and integrate them into proper features.

Really, a few features that saved some time and helped produce a better end product would be nice.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[rx8pilot]

For those that missed it.The presentation was about as polished as Eagle. Here are some highlights.....

DXF Import: Yay, maybe a few decades late but better late than never. Its ULP which is no easier than the user designed option I already use. This is not a feature that did not exist before. It is free and works in my current version 6. Why pay for an upgrade?



Gerber import: The presenter says they are VERY excited to add this feature. Not sure I have ever wanted or needed such a thing, but could be useful. As a top priority feature add? Weird. Also, another ULP - not an upgrade to the program.



IPC2581: Still not sure what the feature is, seems like an add-on that outputs IPC data.



Send to Fusion 360: Kinda neat, but I don't know any professionals using 360. No high-end solutions for SolidWorks? Annnnnd....its not really ready  - not even a demo. Not really targeting professional users. Focusing on makers only is not really a business since hobbyists and makers are mainly looking for free tools.



Eagle Library Browser: Now this is helpful....finally something I will use and benefit from. This is a tiny improvement but at least its an improvement I guess. Routing tools? Component design tools? Something real?



Extending EAGLE Capabilities.....? Drum Roll......Nothing! Nothing at all......WTF? The presenter spoke about an engineer that was hired two years ago to work on the auto-router. Who cares, I was hoping for improved tools for difficult manual routing. Push, shove, Real time high-lighting of intersecting traces? Anything? Maybe the ability to change the width of an entire trace instead of just a segment?


Working with other vendors to create plug-ins. Ok, this is good and many other software companies have boosted capability this way. There was nothing to speak of in this presentation other than CadSoft is working with outside companies to develop options. Again....this is not even done or near done. It is an idea/concept that they are kicking around. So far, I see the updates focused on the periphery of the process and NOTHING on the core functions of routing and laying out a PCB. Blaaaa!


Conclusion: I would not pay anything to upgrade from where I am on version 6. There are so many little tweaks that they could have focused on that would have me upgrading for a fee. My expectations were low and they still did not meet my expectations. So weak.

[Icchan]

Eagle has a big bag of legacy to hinder it's progress. They most propably would need to re-write the whole code base from beginning to add features people need since it never was designed for anything that we ask.

Eagle is based on command line interface where you can basically design the whole board from end to end by typing commands. That kind of application engine isn't suitable for push & shove, real time DRC or similar that we expect from programs these days.

That's why even most of the new stuff is made by using ULPs because that's the easiest way to extend program that has such an old code base that probably most of the developers dealing with it now days don't have any idea how to continue development or probably it can't be done.

[rx8pilot]

That makes sense. I suspect that internally they are struggling with decisions about how to maintain professional relevance. Only the paid customers pay the bills and those are the ones that need more than Eagle can offer. A do-over coding effort is so big, it's hard to imagine they will put in such an effort. Certainly not before I spend my money elsewhere anyway.

[karoru]

Eagle has a big bag of legacy to hinder it's progress. They most propably would need to re-write the whole code base from beginning to add features people need since it never was designed for anything that we ask.

Eagle is based on command line interface where you can basically design the whole board from end to end by typing commands. That kind of application engine isn't suitable for push & shove, real time DRC or similar that we expect from programs these days.

It looks like they made general-purpose CAD engine and  interpreted language as framework, to make it similar to AutoCAD (which used Lisp for this purpose), and then proceeded to find a niche where it would work (EE).

[Karel]

That's why even most of the new stuff is made by using ULPs because that's the easiest way to extend program ...

It's one of the many reasons we switched from Altium/Cadstar to Eagle.
The fact that a lot of functionality of Eagle is done by ULP's is good thing.
It means that those functionalities are open source which in turn means you can modify and/or extend the program according to your needs.
However, it's true that a lot of people can't handle freedom and because of that prefer completely closed software where the manufacturer of that software solely decides what's good for your business.

[rx8pilot]

However, it's true that a lot of people can't handle freedom and because of that prefer completely closed software where the manufacturer of that software solely decides what's good for your business.

My preference is software that works without me having to spend enormous amounts of time 'extending' it myself. It has nothing to do with not being able to handle an open platform and everything to do with getting a job done. Learning the ULP language followed by development and debugging and managing the ULP's sucks for a business. I want to design a PCB, not PCB software.

I see the ULP system as a crutch to force/encourage the user base to develop the software for Eagle. They provide marginal software but with an opportunity for you to fix it? 

[Karel]

My preference is software that works without me having to spend enormous amounts of time 'extending' it myself.

Nobody obliges you to do that. You can use Eagle "as is".

I see the ULP system as a crutch to force/encourage the user base to develop the software for Eagle. They provide marginal software but with an opportunity for you to fix it?

I don't believe their software is "marginal". I believe the bang for bucks is excellent.
For example, the "holy" Altium has a marketshare of only 10%, you have to pay 6000,=/8000,= for a licence and
another 1000,= per year for support. Despite that, their bloated software is buggy and some bugs takes years to be solved.
And because it's closed software, you have practically no way to fix it yourself or hire somebody to fix it for you.

My main point of critic about the ULP is not the ULP itself. Cadsoft should create more menu entries in the program that
cals important ULP's. Also, a better index/list with functionality description should be nice, specially for new users.
But again, if you want, you can also modify the menu entries in Eagle yourself and add other ULP's in to it.

For me, paying 10 times more only to have push & shove and fancy 3d view, sounds ridiculous.