Eagle is beautiful software

[Karel]

Eagle does not force you to use an insecure os owned by a convicted monopolist and plagued by lots of malware.

Eagle does not use a closed, proprietary format to store your data.
Instead, it stores it in a well specified XML format. This means that you are in control of all of your data.
You can use Git for backup, version control and collaboration.
Also, commands like "grep" and "diff" are much more comfortable to use when handling projects and libraries.

You are able to handle, modify, convert your data (projects and libraries) with or without Eagle.

Eagle provides ULP, "user language programming". A C-style language that gives you access to all objects
inside Eagle and your projects and libraries. Combined with the powerful scripting capabilities,
you will be able to modify and finetune Eagle in the way you want.

Eagle has proper shortcuts for every operation. If you don't like them, you can change them.
You can even extend the menu's inside Eagle with your own extensions.

Instead of using mouseclicks, you can use almost every operation by typing commands in the konsole.
Arrow up/down let's you wander through the history. This konsole is very powerful.

Eagle does not require a permanent internet connection.

Eagle does not require a dongle.

Eagle allows you to install a single user-license on a maximum of three computers.

Eagle can be used as a free viewer to open and view projects made by other people with professional licencees.

Eagle does not require annual payments. Once you have bought a license, you can use Eagle as many years
as you want. Updates are free (within the same major version number).

Eagle has very moderate hardware requirements, it runs on every computer and it starts up very quickly.

Eagle has realtime forward/backward annotation. Changes in the schematic are immediately visible in the layout.

Eagle has the biggest community. Solutions for any problem can be found quickly on the internet without the
need to call a helpdesk.

In my professional career I have been using different packages for schematic capture and board layout.
Many years ago I have used Multisim/Ultiboard. It was a complete disaster, extremely buggy.
Than I switched to Eagle. After moving to another company, we used Altium Designer. This software is not
too bad but can not compare with Eagle. It's way overpriced and unstable. At least four times a day we had
to kill the program and restart because it got in some strange loop. Also, we had lots of problems with the
licenses. Many times we had to call support because the program erroneously reported that too many seats
were in use.
After using Altium for a couple of years, I became an expat and started to work for a company that wanted me
to continue with a mediumsized project made in Zuken's Cadstar. I tried for a while. I tried a little longer.
I tried much longer. Than I decided that enough was enough. Fortunately I was able to convince my boss that
we should switch to Eagle. I manually redrawn the schematic and the layout (6 layers) into Eagle.

It was the best decision I ever took. My productivity went up, the number of errors in prototypes went down
to zero.

Moral of the story, don't be blinded by the many stories about how good or bad some packages are.
Every software has it's quirks. Eagle has them. But the overpriced alternatives have them as well.
The only difference is, you pay more. And stay away from packages that want to integrate FPGA design or
simulation. Those things should be done by specialized software. Integration is bad. Separation is good.
With integrated software packages you pay for functionality that works usually bad.

Last but not least, don't think that expensive (overpriced) software with lot's of bells and whistles
can compensate for lack of experience and knowledge... I have seen colleagues struggling with expensive
software, creating faulty boards because the designrules were setup wrong because the software was way
too complex to setup correctly...

[Christopher]

For the price(!), eagle is pretty good.

realtime forward annotation is pretty good. Until you delete a wire on the schematic to tidy it up and it removes the WHOLE track on the PCB you spent a while routing.

C-Like scripting is bloody useful. I have spreadsheets to make footprints for SOP,SMD resistors, diodes etc packages. And another to add components to X Y coordinates (useful for testpoints)

Eagle is fantastic software if you want to just route a board quickly for prototyping.  I can lay my components down on the schematic and have gerbers very quickly. Next step is to mill the board on the LPKF, and test it. All in the same day. No fussing about with rules, output jobs etc. Then the complete design goes to the pcb designers to jiggle with in PADS..

Anything more professional than test boards I would definitely want to use altium. Shame the company won't pay for it, though.

[Karel]

realtime forward annotation is pretty good. Until you delete a wire on the schematic to tidy it up and it removes the WHOLE track on the PCB you spent a while routing.

Ripup a (small) segment in the layout editor first.

Eagle is fantastic software if you want to just route a board quickly for prototyping.

Many engineers are using Eagle to produce professional multi-layer boards for use in commercial, automotive and medical equipment. We are just a couple of them.

[zapta]

Eagle is a great software but I will gladly jump ship once something comparable with standard UI will available. ;-)

I am sampling kicad and dip trace every few months but no luck so far (e.g. no back annotation).

Non-free or Windows only packages are not a good fit for my open source projects.

[Jeroen3]

Are we going to measure tool quality in the number of pages?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eagle/eagle-is-horrible-software/

[rx8pilot]

I am an Eagle user and I would not likely describe it a beautiful. It has some excellent attributes with the most important for me was the price. I needed a package that I could learn with and produce commercial PCB's. It has done that, but I am keenly aware that it is limiting as I grow my business.

I come from the mechanical engineering world. I started with a weak CAD system early on because I could not afford anything else. Eventually, I broke down and got SolidWorks in 1998.  EVERYTHING changed. SolidWorks was so intuitive that I was able to ficus on design and engineering rather than a fussy tool. There is no absolute requirement for annual fees if you stay with your current version. I generally skip versions to save money. Eagle is the same way, new major versions cost money.

Anyway, I have been looking at Altium Designer as a familiar jump from low-end to high-end. Somehow, I doubt I will look back and miss Eagle. I will say that Eagle played a very critical role in getting my new electronics business successfully up and running.

[Mechatrommer]

I am sampling kicad and dip trace every few months but no luck so far (e.g. no back annotation).

havent you tried file->back annotate in diptrace schematics?

[0xdeadbeef]

I want to like Eagle and every time a new version gets out, I try it, it annoys me and I keep using DipTrace.
Same with KiCAD. I even tried to like DEX. Still in the end, despite of a lot of smaller issues, DipTrace simply works best for me.

[Wilksey]

Some very good points raised, which some people do seem to forget.

Everyone has their preferred package, and they can fully justify why they prefer it over package "x", thing is, your layout is only as good as you are, you can buy Cadence or Altium packages but still not produce a good layout, the software is fully capable, but the designer is not.

People scoff at the thought that Eagle can make something as large as a PC Motherboard, in all honesty there is no reason why it can't be used, and it probably is for some.  Just because YOU wouldn't WANT to, doesn't mean someone else wouldn't or can't.

Eagle has some nice features, KiCAD and DipTrace are bringing new features out all of the time, some packages you will just "click" with, some you will loathe using, but it doesn't mean, just because you don't want to use it, that others don't or shouldn't use it.

Everytime I get asked the question "which package is best", there is no right or wrong answer, try them all, choose which one is best for YOU, if you get into a rut that only something like updating to a newer package will resolve, then do it, doesn't mean there is something wrong with the previous package, just you have reached it's limits.

I use Altium and EAGLE, and I must say that I have seen some very impressive things done with EAGLE, Altium has all of the tools and makes it easier to do certain things, but they are not necessity to get a board laid out, EAGLE can do it, sometimes it takes a bit longer is all.

[Howardlong]

I've only used Eagle for the past decade plus for schematic capture and PCB layout, but about a dozen years ago I did try Diptrace and a couple of others, but I was drawn in and blinkered in my decision to use Eagle by the extensive libraries Eagle offers, mistakenly thinking I'd not have to go to the trouble of making my own parts.

Even back then when I first needed a reasonable schematic capture and PCB package, the Eagle UI was so god damn ass backwards, to coin a phrase from across the pond, and it still is now. It was like going back to the 80s where every DOS program had its own UI you had to learn.

In short, everything I try to do with Eagle is a fight, but I'm pretty much tied into it what with all the investment in time and money I've made in the product over the years.

If they really wanted to make Eagle a killer product, they'd invest in a "simple mode" to wrap the innards with a modern and consistent interface like Diptrace has while maintaining the ass backward mode for old farts like me.

Working with Eagle is like living with your mother-in-law. You might not be able to stand her, but divorce is probably going to be worse.

[alexanderbrevig]

I have Altium Designer, KiCad and Eagle installed. I prefer them in that order, though I use (or convert designs to) KiCAD for open source stuff. I'm mostly annoyed by Eagle now, but it is the tool I learned schematics and layout so I have some kind of weird emotional investment in it so I forgive the quirks (in my opinion there's a lot of them).

The most beautiful side of Eagle is the community surrounding it.

[EEVblog]

If they really wanted to make Eagle a killer product

It seems like they don't.
Element14 (who own Eagle) have reached out to Altium to provide them a mid-high end package in CircuitStudio, leaving eagle to the low end.
Also, I've heard rumors that there have been staff cutbacks at Eagle. Anyone confirm?

[zapta]

I am sampling kicad and dip trace every few months but no luck so far (e.g. no back annotation).

havent you tried file->back annotate in diptrace schematics?

Will give it a try, thanks. It's still installed, tried it again yesterday.

I like eagle's sch/bed integration. My understanding is that DEX is even better in that respect, maintaining a single database for the schematic and layout.

[Corporate666]

Eagle is a 'beautiful' program in the same way that the android Ash described the Alien as 'perfect'.

If quirkiness, non-standard UI design, glaring lack of features and shockingly bad at keeping up with modern technology are beautiful, then Eagle certainly is.

-You can't orient a crosshatch ground plane at anything other than up/down.  Whenever I've seen a crosshatch plane, it's always at a 45 degree angle to the PCB.  Eagle doesn't let you change it, and their suggestion is to keep the plane straight and turn *everything* else 45 degrees.   

-Arbitrary pad shapes are still a total kludge.  Arbitrary pad shapes have been important in modern components for at least 10 years now, and Eagle still doesn't let you just draw whatever pad shape you like without using polygons + pads secretly embedded within and having to screw with your stop/cream layers after

-No ability to have different design rules for different areas of the PCB

-Horrendous drawing tools.  "You can import from CAD" - no, you really can't.  Not without a 3rd party tool that doesn't work with splines or arcs.  The coordinate reference system has always been horrible.

Multilayer PCB support is basically a kludge, as are many other things.  Love the totally non-standard interface like to copy... you can click the "copy" icon and click a part.  But that just locally copies it... if you want to copy to another PCB, you have to draw a box around the part, then click the copy tool, then *right* click your part, then you can paste it into another open board.


It reminds me of the days of Borland shit software where Borland had their own idea of UI design with green check marks and red X's instead of following the Windows standard.  UI design has gotten where it is due to millions of man hours and huge amounts of user feedback.  It's not likely a few old guys at a small software house know how to do UI design better.  That is the prime reason Eagle is kludgy.





Altium is powerful and has a lot of features - but why on earth does a PCB design software need to use up SO MUCH room on my HDD and why does it run slow as shit (compared to Eagle) on a 4Ghz quad core i7 with 16GB of RAM and nothing else running? 

 

[free_electron]

glorified pen and paper..

[Karel]

It reminds me of the days of Borland shit software...

I remember that. Actually, it's the same shit that is still being used to write altium designer.
It's one of the reasons that it's so bloated and buggy.

[Corporate666]

It reminds me of the days of Borland shit software...

I remember that. Actually, it's the same shit that is still being used to write altium designer.
It's one of the reasons that it's so bloated and buggy.

Altium is written in Borland/Delphi?   

If so, what a bunch of buffoons. 

[Rigby]

It is. 

Goes to show just how little actual effort goes into the EDA "genre" as a whole.  Lots of old and crusty software floating around here being sold as new.

[marshallh]

I used to think that Eagle is decent.

Then I started doing FPGA boards with Altium. Eagle is a complete joke. It might be faster to route the pcb in MSpaint..

[Monkeh]

I used to think that Eagle is decent.

Then I started doing FPGA boards with Altium. Eagle is a complete joke. It might be faster to route the pcb in MSpaint..

Eagle's crap. But so are the alternatives at the moment.

I'll take the crap with proper back annotation and a single process.

[Christopher]

What he said ^


We're in 2015, not 1998. Try laying out a board with Altium's interactive router then go back to Eagle's dumb line tool. Routing an 8-bit bus all to the same length can be done in a few minutes, quite enjoyably. All 8 lines at the same time. One click is replicated across all 8 wires, genius.

Watching this video (from 2010) made me _want_ to try a "real" editor.

[Corporate666]

It is. 

Goes to show just how little actual effort goes into the EDA "genre" as a whole.  Lots of old and crusty software floating around here being sold as new.

I can't understand how a large-ish company like Altium wouldn't hire a small team of crack programmers/graphics&UI designers and a software project manager, put them in a room away from the rest of the marketing and administrative people and let them come up with a modern version of the software with an XML back end and .Net front end.  I can't imagine all the bullshit & redundant processing that pig software must be doing in the background.  It's shameful how slowly it runs on my machine.

Pity we need to choose from "archaic, lacking features and counterintuitive, but fast" and "full featured, but bloated and slow".

These PCB software companies are lucky their market is small enough not to attract real competition like Dassault or Siemens.

[Rigby]

His points about platform agnosticism, open file format, and user scriptability are good points, though.

Eagle sucks overall, certainly, and it does function as intended with the features he described.

Watching this video (from 2010) made me _want_ to try a "real" editor.

That video is a great example of what Eagle DOESN'T do. 

[Rigby]

I can't understand how a large-ish company like Altium wouldn't hire a small team of crack programmers/graphics&UI designers and a software project manager, put them in a room away from the rest of the marketing and administrative people and let them come up with a modern version of the software with an XML back end and .Net front end.  I can't imagine all the bullshit & redundant processing that pig software must be doing in the background.  It's shameful how slowly it runs on my machine.

Well, it functions, and people keep buying.  Market pressures haven't forced them to pay attention to it.  It's that simple, most likely.  The impetus to make a fundamental change like that just isn't there, yet.

[Jeroen3]

Is there some place on the internet where a proper objective comparison can be found of all active eda design tools?

Because this is useless.

[Monkeh]

Is there some place on the internet where a proper objective comparison can be found of all active eda design tools?

Because this is useless.

Your best bet is to try them.

[Jeroen3]

That is not a objective comparison. And that is a time consuming comparison.
Not to mention expensive.

[Monkeh]

That is not a objective comparison. And that is a time consuming comparison.
Not to mention expensive.

And the only way you'll be able to make a decent decision.

Or you're just looking for bog reading material..

You can try the most popular packages for free.

[daqq]

Eagle sucks overall, certainly, and it does function as intended with the features he described.

I guess that at the end of the day it's about pricing vs quality - for eagle you get a fair amount of bang for your buck:

1 user - 1200 USD
5 users - 2500 USD
( http://www.cadsoftusa.com/shop/pricing/ )

As such it's good enough for small-ish companies/hobbyists. I completely agree that it lacks many great features, but I'd sum it up into: Great considering the price.

Yeah, it could be better. What couldn't be?

[nctnico]

That is not a objective comparison. And that is a time consuming comparison.
Not to mention expensive.

Unfortunately it is the only way. Some tools help you by providing a structured way of doing things. Orcad Layout for example doesn't allow to just add a trace somewhere. You have to create something it calls an 'obstacle' (which can be anything from a copper pour, a line, route keepout, etc) and leave it floating or connect it to a net. Other software allows to draw traces wherever you want (Layo1) and some even go so far a trace gets connected to a net because it touches a pad connected to that net (Geda PCB).

It depends entirely on what you are comfortable with and what you are willing to learn. It also depends on your requirements. Personally I will never ever use a CAD package which can't use a component database which links a component to a symbol and footprint and cannot produce a ready-for-production BOM (with order numbers) with a single click. It is just too tedious to select&check footprints on every design or having to add part numbers to a BOM.

[XFDDesign]

To get hate from both sides, I'm going to state a particular opinion:

Eagle, Protel/Altium, etc. are all tools. You find the tool that works for you, and you use it. If you find something that lets you work better, you use it.

At my place of employment (a fair sized semiconductor manufacturer on the East Coast of the US), the de-facto PCB tool is Allegro. It is the second worst-POS-tool I have ever had the misfortune to attempt to use. So, I don't use it. I got work to buy a copy of Eagle pro because it's cheap and I can use it to get my job done in a timely manner. It might not do 32 layers like Allego, but I'm not doing 32 layer projects. It might not do multi-site simultaneous editing, but I'm not doing multi-site simultaneous editing. The list goes on. Eagle, at the end of the day, does the job I need it to do, at a price work was willing to pay without so much as a fuss towards forcing me to use Allegro.

The absolute worst package I have ever used, was Mentor Graphics' PADS. If there were ever a software tool developed for the "money grows on trees" thinking of the dot-com era, it was PADS. You spend $4000 on the basic editor interface. You want to route? Extra $1500 please. You want to edit your own packages? Extra $1,500 please. You want to use hotkeys to change your view? Extra $1,500 please. I am only mildly exaggerating (you can route with the out-of-the-box tool, but little else). Every single feature you expect to be common in even a low-end CAD tool, cost you $1,500 per feature.

Honestly, the best package I have had the pleasure to use, was Protel (now branded Altium). It had a good flow, nice schematic capture tool, it incorporated all the bits from advanced trace rules down to a really nice router. But, it is (or was when I last looked) $10,000+. As I mentioned earlier however, EaglePro does the job I need it to do. If I needed the extra features that Eagle doesn't offer, I would need to reasonably push for a better tool. At home? It is doubtful I would ever need anything more than Eagle.

[Evil Lurker]

Learning to use all the features in Eagle is like trying to learn how to dance ballet... in high heeled shoes. When the learning process is over, the end result is indeed beautiful. Problem is figuring out how not to ragequit and blow your brains out in frustration until you reach that point. In some ways Eagle is a lot like Sony products...

[Wilksey]

Learning to use all the features in Eagle is like trying to learn how to dance ballet... in high heeled shoes. When the learning process is over, the end result is indeed beautiful. Problem is figuring out how not to ragequit and blow your brains out in frustration until you reach that point. In some ways Eagle is a lot like Sony products...

Unfortunately that is down to the individual, I personally had no issues what so ever learning about Eagle, Altium or most of the other packages I have tried, they all kind of do the same thing, just a bit differently, the first program I used was Electronics Workbench and Circuit Maker 2000 before using Protel, then progressing to the modern CAD architecture.

I honestly can't figure out what the issue is with learning different packages because I never had these frustrations / issues, yeah I had a few "stumbling blocks" but I got over them with little ranting and dolly throwing.

Everything expressed here regarding CAD packages are all of personal opinion, try them for yourself, don't let others "lead" you into thinking something is rubbish when in fact, they just don't know / don't want to know how to use it.

[Corporate666]

Unfortunately that is down to the individual, I personally had no issues what so ever learning about Eagle, Altium or most of the other packages I have tried, they all kind of do the same thing, just a bit differently, the first program I used was Electronics Workbench and Circuit Maker 2000 before using Protel, then progressing to the modern CAD architecture.

I don't know how you can say such a thing?  That's like saying a bulldozer and a hand trowel do the same thing, just a bit differently.

There are many, many, many things that Altium does that Eagle just can't do - and those things are unrelated to 'how' Eagle works, but just many features that simply don't exist in Eagle (see video above, for example).

[Wilksey]

Not really,

Ok, eagle can't route 8 tracks at once...but it can do them individually, routing 8 tracks at once makes it easier for the designer, yes, but it doesn't stop you from routing the 8 tracks, it can do differential pairs, length matching, blah blah blah.

I can't see what AD can do that Eagle cannot in terms of putting copper down, it might take longer to do in Eagle but you can do it. 

BTW, I use both, AD at work and Eagle, and Eagle at home.

[rx8pilot]

I would agree that you can 'eventually' get a PCB out of Eagle, like almost any other package. Technically, pencil and paper could eventually accomplish the same task.
The change I am hoping for is that I don't have to beat the software into submission with ULP's and other workarounds. I will write a big check to the company that produces the software that allows me to get through a layout with the least amount of time and effort. Built-in and intuitive features are the way that happens. Relying on a ULP or convoluted workaround is not a real solution and it is certainly NOT beautiful at all.

[XFDDesign]

I would agree that you can 'eventually' get a PCB out of Eagle, like almost any other package. Technically, pencil and paper could eventually accomplish the same task.
The change I am hoping for is that I don't have to beat the software into submission with ULP's and other workarounds. I will write a big check to the company that produces the software that allows me to get through a layout with the least amount of time and effort. Built-in and intuitive features are the way that happens. Relying on a ULP or convoluted workaround is not a real solution and it is certainly NOT beautiful at all.

What kind of project are you doing, that your concern is "eventually" getting a PCB out of Eagle? That is, what kind of project is so meticulously intricate and complex, that Eagle is outright incapable and so you need an ocean of ULPs and hacks to do the job? For such a project, given the implied complexity, why are you not using a $25k+ package which caters to every such need?

[LabSpokane]

For such a project, given the implied complexity, why are you not using a $25k+ package which caters to every such need?

He's a one-man-band (like many).  CAD packages seem to be like accounting / business management software.  There's this huge gulf between introductory and corporate scale that really takes a commitment to cross. 

[Wilksey]

That is Eagles way of working, you either get used to it or you don't and move onto another package.
When you get used to the differences in the package it really isn't that bad at all, yes the likes of Altium makes it easier to do certain things, you can organise your schematics and PCB's a bit better (rooms etc), but most people don't need that level of functionality, it might be "nice to have" but then so is an Audi R8, but a Audi A3 will do the job of getting you from home to work just as quick in rush hour traffic and cost a lot less.

If you can afford the likes of Altium for your own business or even for home use (insane!) then by all means go for it, in my opinion all of the major players in the PCB CAD world are good, from KiCAD, through to Eagle and Diptrace right through to OrCAD and Altium have their place in the market and have their own upsides and downsides.

[rx8pilot]

He's a one-man-band (like many).  CAD packages seem to be like accounting / business management software.  There's this huge gulf between introductory and corporate scale that really takes a commitment to cross.

This is true.

CASE 1:
When I started my first business, I used Excel to keep track of accounting. In the early part of the business it made total sense because the accounting was extremely simple. Eventually, I crossed the line where the limitations of an Excel spreadsheet was not enough to run a business and I was spending more time maintaining the spreadsheet than anything else. No problem, I get QuickBooks and an accountant to help me set it all up. QuickBooks, surprisingly works reasonably well but I am keenly aware of its limitations. Those limitations are worked around for years until I get to the point where they are slowing me down and it is time for a whole new solution again. A few thousand dollars later, I have switched over to dedicated fincance and management software for my particular business. It was expensive to buy and slow to learn. What do I get in return from it? Time. Lots and lots of time. The QuickBooks limitations required a whole bunch of spreadsheet band-aids to keep track of things that QuickBooks cannot deal with. I was unable to make decisions or even understand what was going on without embarking on a research project. The new software ties all of my business together.

CASE 2:
When I started a design business in the mid-90's, I got some cheap software because it was all I could afford at the time. I spent a few months getting through a fairly simple project. It all turned out well, but took a long time. I used the money from that project to buy SolidWorks which was stunningly expensive at the time. I immediately realized that the project I had just done could have been completed in a fraction of the time with SolidWorks. I paid for 2 weeks of classes, but only went for about 2 days. SolidWorks is so intuitive and powerful that I was doing exactly what I needed right out of the gate. If I stayed with the old software - that could get the same thing done, I probably would not have been able to keep the business.

CASE 3:
When I purchased my first CNC milling machine, I purchased some CAM software called BobCAM for about $1200 US. Again, I did not have much cash on hand and thought this will get me going. Sort of. I was able to machine parts with the programs it made but it was slow to get anything done, especially making changes after a program was made. I started looking around and found some software called CAM Works which is a plug-in for SolidWorks. The cost was about $13k but I decided that it was the only way I could have a chance of programming fast enough to have a business. Sure enough, I was able to make and update CNC programs an order of magnitude faster (at least). It crashed and did all sorts of dumb things but was still FAR better than the $1200 Bob CAM. After a few years of that, I got 5 axis CNC mills and needed more speed and sophistication - so I got MasterCAM for SolidWorks for another $16k. Huge productivity increase again.

Eagle is the only EE CAD package I have used so far and it seems to be repeating the same song. The 3 cases outlined above are only a few software cases that I have experience with over the past 25 years, but they are relevant. Speed is the most critical overall benefit I am looking for in new EE CAD software. My layouts are not so complex that Eagle cannot make it happen, I just want it to happen as fast as humanly possible. As LabSpokane pointed out, I am a one-man-band. That means I am the CEO and the janitor and everything in-between at the same time. I am highly motivated to spend every minute of the day very wisely to avoid having to hire anyone. Nearly everything I buy and do has something to do with saving time. If I run out of time, I have two choices - I can work through the nights and weekends or hire people. To hire someone is not a straightforward process either since I don't have full time work for any particular skill. I need a little engineering, a little PCB layout, some CNC programming, maybe a little software development, sales, website, shipping, accounting, supply chain management, and the list goes on and on. Side note, I had all those people on payroll a little over a year ago and I had less money and time than I do now. I spend all my time managing people and keeping them busy. It occurred to me that if I had next to no overhead and did everything myself, I may actually end up with a 'bigger' business. It turned out to be true much to the dismay of the 10 people I had to let go.

I have focused on efficiency, efficiency,efficiency and it is paying off. Getting Eagle has turned out to be a fantastic decision that has enabled my business to transition from mechanical design to mechanical and electrical design and manufacturing. I don't really know much about Altium Designer other than the videos and demos I have done so I cannot say anything about it's capability. From what I have seen so far, it is likely similar to the cases I outlined above. Time saved is time earned. To me it's having a free weekend with the kids, its making a better design, its lower stress.

From my experiences listed here, it can cost a lot of money to save money. Buying the right tools for the job has always been the lowest cost for me even when the tools are the most expensive available.

[Corporate666]

Not really,

Ok, eagle can't route 8 tracks at once...but it can do them individually, routing 8 tracks at once makes it easier for the designer, yes, but it doesn't stop you from routing the 8 tracks, it can do differential pairs, length matching, blah blah blah.

I can't see what AD can do that Eagle cannot in terms of putting copper down, it might take longer to do in Eagle but you can do it. 

BTW, I use both, AD at work and Eagle, and Eagle at home.

I've listed things that Eagle simply cannot do

-It cannot do 45 degree copper pours (see :http://www.kg4cyx.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/wpid-imag3465.jpg - warning, huge image).  Eagle can only do 90 degree. 

-It cannot import CAD drawings.  It has a crappy ULP that only work with straight lines in older versions of some CAD files.  If you have an arbitrary board outline with curves or splines, Eagle simply cannot import it.

-It cannot show you the back of the PCB "as the user sees it", only looking through the PCB

-Eagle cannot dimension parts from other reference points other than the origin.  This makes drawing footprints for new components a chore, especially when the component uses a lot of relative dimensions

-Eagle cannot render a 3d board view

There are so many more things... but I'd agree with the above posts that if your standard is "it may take longer, it may be full of kludges and workarounds, but it can do it eventually", then you could also argue that you can also do everything Eagle can do with transparencies and masking tape.

[rx8pilot]

-Eagle cannot dimension parts from other reference points other than the origin.  This makes drawing footprints for new components a chore, especially when the component uses a lot of relative dimensions

This one really pisses me off.

[Wilksey]

Well, as I said, I use both so I am not going to bias towards or against either Altium or Eagle, they both have their uses and places but to address your issues:

Flipping the board was an issue for me to begin with, but you learn to get used to it by turning on / off layers.

I find the "Mark" tool useful when drawing footprints in Eagle.

I have imported from DXF, some more complex drawings I convert to HPGL then import that, not ideal, but gets the job done.

I have never been required to do 45 degree copper pours, but I am not convinced a ULP couldn't help.

There are solutions (3rd party Sketchup tools and 3rd party POV ray tools) to render 3D.

I fully agree with you and others that it is not the easiest / quickest tool to use, but it is, for use of a better word, capable (considering it's price).

[rx8pilot]

I have the DXF ULP to get PCB outlines into Eagle. In the end, it does the job, but not exactly a straight path of course.

How does the 'Mark' tool work/help on footprints? I could use a tip or two on footprints. I am slow.

Eagle does not deserve any bashing - as you said it has a good bang for the buck. The thread title describing it as beautiful seems like an amazing stretch though. I would describe Eagle as 'Good Enough' which is what I needed when I purchased it. Other purchases are prioritized ahead of replacing Eagle because it is working good enough. It's only a matter of cash-flow before I push it off to the side. I have no plans to upgrade it any more.

[Wilksey]

At least someone is passionate about Eagle! 

The Mark tool allows you to set a "false origin" effectively, so if you have a "known" distance from another pad, but not from the starting origin, you can tag the pad as the new origin and measure from there, you can do it the usual way by adding to the offsets of the pad from the origin, but I find it easier and more intuitive to set the false origin using the Mark tool.

If you look at the Eagle manual it will probably give you a better insight.

Footprints have always been a ball ache for me, you do get used to interpreting various datasheets, but it wouldn't bother me if I didn't have to make a single footprint, ever again!
Some people are sadistic and actually LIKE making them, 

[Rigby]

Not really,

Ok, eagle can't route 8 tracks at once...but it can do them individually, routing 8 tracks at once makes it easier for the designer, yes, but it doesn't stop you from routing the 8 tracks, it can do differential pairs, length matching, blah blah blah.

I can't see what AD can do that Eagle cannot in terms of putting copper down, it might take longer to do in Eagle but you can do it. 

BTW, I use both, AD at work and Eagle, and Eagle at home.

Not going to argue with what you said.  I will add that by that logic there is no fundamental difference between Altium Designer 15 and using opaque tape on transparency and photolithography to make boards.  You can build a board with both, but one will take longer.  A LOT longer.

Now that the contrast is a bit more extreme, it is easier to understand why comparisons between Altium Designer and Eagle feel so forced.  They just are't even in the same class in terms of functionality.

[Wilksey]

Yeah if you want to be really really really really expansive on your logic.

You could say that a hammer does the same job as a bulldozer, or a big ass JCB does the same job as a gardening trowel, but it would take a LOT longer with that logic.

I really don't get all of the hate around Eagle, OK, it's not "beautiful" as the OP put it, but neither is AD, it's full of bugs and crashes frequently (as others have noticed also).

Just because we now have different (note, not better) tools such as DipTrace and KiCAD (which you will never beat for price vs features as it is FREE!) does not mean it should be discounted, if nothing else it holds a place in history of exploding the hobby electronics scene, as it was the tool of choice by many for many many years, just so happens it does a good job at commercial stuff to, just look at what Olimex has achieved with Eagle, not bad for a "shit" package eh!

At the end of the day as I have said it is all about opinion, of others want to discount it because someone said they couldn't use it then that's up to them, it won't hurt anything, Eagle isn't going to go away despite what people say it is still a widely used package, people will use what they want to use.

I for one, do not have an issue using it I don't need Altiums features at home and I can't say it makes things 100 x faster in AD than Eagle, it's footprint wizard is a nice feature, but if you are that bad at making them you can always use the free library creation tool PCB librarian or Ultra librarian or whatever it's called.

[alank2]

I am with the OP, maybe because I don't know any better, but I agree with all of its points about the strengths Eagle has and Eagle has done everything I've needed.

They have made a change to make the copy more intuitive, but I actually prefer the old way now that I'm used to it.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Eagle is beautiful software

when I saw the title of this thread I was sure it was sarcasm.
For the OPs sake hopefully he has better taste in women.

[westfw]

comparisons between Altium Designer and Eagle feel so forced

Well sure.  Eagle costs between 0 and about $2000, while Altium starts at about $9k...

I understand that there is a lot that EAGLE doesn't do.  I'm pretty much OK with that.  I'd be shocked if a package were 4x the price and didn't offer additional features.  I'll even allow that there are some designs (maybe even "many designs") for which those extra features are somewhere between "useful" and "necessary."

But that's all different than the usual "EAGLE is a piece of crap", isn't it?

I don't really understand the complaints about the EAGLE UI being "backward."  Maybe I'm just from a time when it wasn't expected for all applications to have common UI philosophies.  Maybe it's an EMACS vs VI sort of thing.  Maybe I just don't use enough "modern" applications...

[MarkL]

...

The Mark tool allows you to set a "false origin" effectively, so if you have a "known" distance from another pad, but not from the starting origin, you can tag the pad as the new origin and measure from there, you can do it the usual way by adding to the offsets of the pad from the origin, but I find it easier and more intuitive to set the false origin using the Mark tool.

...

I find specifying relative coordinates ("R") for drawing lines and other objects with the Mark works well.

Another time-saver is to temporarily assign the grid spacing to match non-standard increments in the component you're building (screw holes, pads, outlines, for example).  Don't feel compelled to work in whatever grid spacing is provided and then try to land the pieces at the right coordinates by hand.  It's also easy to flip the grid back and forth between inches and mm to work in the dimensions in the spec sheet.

More complicated pieces can also be built at (0,0) where it's easier to match spec sheet origins, and then moved and duplicated as needed.

Edit: Fixed confusing first sentence.

[MarkL]

I think "Eagle is adequate software".

It's not mega-featured and it doesn't have a mega price to go with it.  I've been using it professionally for over 10 years and it gets the job done for me.

I've found it's extremely reliable despite other reports.  It has crashed on me once, ever, and even then I lost no work because it backs up everything every minute or so (as configured by me).

I've used their customer support 3 times (email).  Each time answers were prompt (within 1 day) and complete.  In one case a work-around provided.

I've never had any issues with gerbers or raw Eagle files at board houses.

It runs on Linux, which is my requirement.  Others need not apply.

Like any user interface, it requires working experience to get familiar and efficient with it.  There's plenty of things I would have changed in the beginning, but now that I know it, the list is much smaller.  If something bothered me enough, I would learn ULP and write my own function.

Starting new?  Sure, check out everything out there.  But I'm what they would consider an entrenched user.  Eagle has worked well for me and I don't regret investing in it for a second.


(And I like EMACS, and hopeless at VI.)

[Corporate666]

Well, as I said, I use both so I am not going to bias towards or against either Altium or Eagle, they both have their uses and places but to address your issues:

Flipping the board was an issue for me to begin with, but you learn to get used to it by turning on / off layers.

I find the "Mark" tool useful when drawing footprints in Eagle.

I have imported from DXF, some more complex drawings I convert to HPGL then import that, not ideal, but gets the job done.

I have never been required to do 45 degree copper pours, but I am not convinced a ULP couldn't help.

There are solutions (3rd party Sketchup tools and 3rd party POV ray tools) to render 3D.

I fully agree with you and others that it is not the easiest / quickest tool to use, but it is, for use of a better word, capable (considering it's price).

The MARK tool doesn't give any new information or provide any new way to do anything - it simply subtracts a constant value from displayed coordinates.  If you are making a footprint for, say, a through hole DIN plug with 8 pins equidistant on a 10mm circle...impossible without a sheet of paper and a calculator, or draw your layout in a real CAD program and get the X/Y coordinates for Eagle.

Every crosshatch ground plane I've ever seen has been at 45 degrees to the PCB.  When I needed to do one, I got in touch with Cadsoft and their answer was "just rotate everything else and leave the plane at 0 degrees".  Perhaps a ULP can do it, but CADSoft didn't seem to think so.

What kind of DXF import doesn't support arcs?  The official suggestion is a 3rd party utility that was written about 13 years ago and doesn't support splines or most modern CAD features.

Flipping the board... sure many people can adapt and I can "visualize" that I am looking through the PCB, not at it... but the fundamental purpose of software is to adapt their offering to the needs of the user, not for the user to adapt to the software's crap way of doing something.

[Corporate666]

I don't really understand the complaints about the EAGLE UI being "backward."  Maybe I'm just from a time when it wasn't expected for all applications to have common UI philosophies.  Maybe it's an EMACS vs VI sort of thing.  Maybe I just don't use enough "modern" applications...

Imagine every town you drove through had different rules for signage and different units of measurement.... so "max 50" in one town might mean your vehicle weight must be under 50 snorks of weight, where a snork is a unit they developed... and another town has the same sign, but "max 50" means you can't travel over 50 furlongs per kilosecond.  It would make driving onerous, at best. 

That's what the old days of software were like.  Lotus 1-2-3 used the "/"key to bring up the menu and escape canceled out of the menu.  Wordperfect used the Escape key to mean "redo", and the F1 key was cancel (and the F3 key was help).

Standards make people more productive and effective.  Successful software companies spend time and money bringing ease of use features to their customers which, in turn, makes the software more valuable.

Cadsoft employed people who thought click copy icon -> select -> right click -> click "copy group" or click copy icon -> left click part were perfectly acceptable ways to copy a part, and that having 2 different methods depending on whether you were local or "global" copying was OK.   

[MarkL]

The MARK tool doesn't give any new information or provide any new way to do anything - it simply subtracts a constant value from displayed coordinates.  If you are making a footprint for, say, a through hole DIN plug with 8 pins equidistant on a 10mm circle...impossible without a sheet of paper and a calculator, or draw your layout in a real CAD program and get the X/Y coordinates for Eagle.

Try:

  grid mm;
  mark (30 30);
  pad (P 10 0) (P 10 36) (P 10 72) (P 10 108) (P 10 144) (P 10 180) (P 10 216) (P 10 252) (P 10 288) (P 10 324);

That was hard.  I needed several sheets of paper.

[Wilksey]

Or not so impossible, just goes to show that people don't give it a chance.

And yes, everything is easy and intuitive to us that use it every day. 

[rx8pilot]

Try:

  grid mm;
  mark (30 30);
  pad (P 10 0) (P 10 36) (P 10 72) (P 10 108) (P 10 144) (P 10 180) (P 10 216) (P 10 252) (P 10 288) (P 10 324);

That was hard.  I needed several sheets of paper.

I have been doing mechanical design for about 17 years - that method is totally and in all way ridiculous in today's software environment. It is what I would expect in the mid-80's.

In SolidWorks (even back to 1998 version when I first got it) you simply click a center point. type 10 for size and type 8 for instances and press enter. Also, you can define a distance between two objects which is VERY common in pad layout from a data sheet. In Eagle you have to change the grid size or manually calc the numbers. Again, in SolidWorks its a pattern tool that needs only very basic info to make just about any pattern seen in an electronics package. Not sure how Altium fairs in this, but the software concept for drawing patterned geometry is many decades old and EASY to implement.

The point in most of the responses, is not whether you can pull something off in Eagle, but rather how much time and effort does it take. I have been using Eagle for 18 months and never knew the trick you described. I had SolidWorks for a few hours and had a full assembly of related parts that were CNC ready. If the answer is always a ULP that was written by some random person years ago or a whole bunch of command line entries - it is marginal software that gets away with it because it is inexpensive. Work around are NOT solutions - they are by definition a Band-Aid covering a glaring mistake or omission. The concept of ULP is almost a good one but it is clear that CadSoft leans on it to get R&D/solutions for free from end-users instead of coding the needed bits into the software in the first place.

I know that comparing SolidWorks and Eagle is a bit strange - but only to show how easy this 'should' be. PCB CAD geometry is very basic compared to 3D mechanical assemblies. It is exclusively lines and arcs with maybe an occasional spline.
 

[MarkL]

I knew that "trick" because I read the manual like I do for all software and test equipment I buy.  Cover to cover.

And Cadsoft publishes very detailed, sometimes painfully long, release notes.  It's important to read those too.

I know a lot of people don't read manuals, but I think it's like throwing money away.  You'll never find all the capabilities of something by chance no matter how long you sit there and spin the knobs.   A lot of people will figure out how to do an operation the hard way, or sometimes declare it impossible because it's not obvious, and they'll never bother to look any further.

And you're right about the user-written ULP workarounds published on Cadsoft's site.  I think Cadsoft has tried to leverage the community too much to make up for some of the failings of Eagle.  I've tried to use some of those ULPs and they're almost always a disaster.  If anything, Cadsoft should have taken notice of what people were desperately providing on their own and then put those functions into Eagle natively.  A parts management database comes to mind.

And for it being cheap, I'd be happy to spend more if there was something that ran on Linux that met my needs.  Unfortunately, there's a strong correlation between the words "free" and "Linux" that doesn't encourage a lot of vendors to focus on Linux.  Oh well.

I'm not going defend Eagle and say it couldn't be better.  Of course it can.

But still, it works for what I need.  At least for the time being.  Others will need to evaluate for themselves.

[Corporate666]

Try:

  grid mm;
  mark (30 30);
  pad (P 10 0) (P 10 36) (P 10 72) (P 10 108) (P 10 144) (P 10 180) (P 10 216) (P 10 252) (P 10 288) (P 10 324);

That was hard.  I needed several sheets of paper.

I have been doing mechanical design for about 17 years - that method is totally and in all way ridiculous in today's software environment. It is what I would expect in the mid-80's.

In SolidWorks (even back to 1998 version when I first got it) you simply click a center point. type 10 for size and type 8 for instances and press enter. Also, you can define a distance between two objects which is VERY common in pad layout from a data sheet. In Eagle you have to change the grid size or manually calc the numbers. Again, in SolidWorks its a pattern tool that needs only very basic info to make just about any pattern seen in an electronics package. Not sure how Altium fairs in this, but the software concept for drawing patterned geometry is many decades old and EASY to implement.

The point in most of the responses, is not whether you can pull something off in Eagle, but rather how much time and effort does it take. I have been using Eagle for 18 months and never knew the trick you described. I had SolidWorks for a few hours and had a full assembly of related parts that were CNC ready. If the answer is always a ULP that was written by some random person years ago or a whole bunch of command line entries - it is marginal software that gets away with it because it is inexpensive. Work around are NOT solutions - they are by definition a Band-Aid covering a glaring mistake or omission. The concept of ULP is almost a good one but it is clear that CadSoft leans on it to get R&D/solutions for free from end-users instead of coding the needed bits into the software in the first place.

I know that comparing SolidWorks and Eagle is a bit strange - but only to show how easy this 'should' be. PCB CAD geometry is very basic compared to 3D mechanical assemblies. It is exclusively lines and arcs with maybe an occasional spline.

If you ever used AutoCAD back in the day when it was a DOS application, Eagle reminds me of that.  The biggest "trick" with Eagle is that everything can be entered on the command line, and when you want to get "real" output from Eagle, the command line is the right way to enter stuff.

But things like PCB outlines which can be drawn in Solidworks in minutes are ridiculously complex to create in Eagle.  If one could import a DXF, that would be great... except between the two import tools (which are both over 10-15 years old), one of them doesn't support arcs, the other lets you run a couple of imports before you have to pay - and doesn't offer support or support splines or most of the other features of AutoCAD.

Eagle is OK for simple stuff when you accept it's non-standard non-intuitive interface and lack of features and power.  But there are *so* many times when you want to do something beyond a simple little rectangle hobby board and then you run into the limitations of the SW.  Most recently for me it was putting text on the board in a font I downloaded.

Altium... click the text tool, type it in... change it to truetype font, pick your font and drag the corners to size it - like every other Windows program ever.

In Eagle.. open up Photoshop, type the text in to a file... convert to indexed color, make the file huge, and save it as a BMP.  Open Eagle, run the import BMP ULP, have it scan the file for the colors used... then open up the palette and select the colors, then generate an SCR file.  Then run the SCR file, and if you are lucky, your image was imported in positive mode.  If not, it's negative and you need to re-do it all.  It's unlikely to be sized as you want, so plan on repeating the procedure 10-20 times to get it just right.  And the SCR file creates tons (like - thousands or more) of points or lines, making Eagle slow as shit when you resize or pan around your board.  And you better put it on a separate layer, because otherwise you won't be able to just select the image - and you will spend hours deleting all the little line segments or pray you can Control-Z back far enough to undo your mistake.  And if you make a change to your PCB and need to resize the text... back to square one!

Fun fun

There isn't much Eagle can't do compared to other packages in the same way there isn't much a hammer and chisel can't do that a Hermle 5-Axis can do 



(CNC porn above)

[MarkL]

The MARK tool doesn't give any new information or provide any new way to do anything - it simply subtracts a constant value from displayed coordinates.  If you are making a footprint for, say, a through hole DIN plug with 8 pins equidistant on a 10mm circle...impossible without a sheet of paper and a calculator, or draw your layout in a real CAD program and get the X/Y coordinates for Eagle.

Try:

  grid mm;
  mark (30 30);
  pad (P 10 0) (P 10 36) (P 10 72) (P 10 108) (P 10 144) (P 10 180) (P 10 216) (P 10 252) (P 10 288) (P 10 324);

That was hard.  I needed several sheets of paper.

If you used several sheets of paper, your points may have been in the right place instead of being off.  The half millimeter difference in half of them may not matter.... or it may, it depends.  But that illustrates the point... if you could have entered an angle and distance, they wouldn't have been off.  Or you could tighten up the grid and get closer, or use a real CAD program to figure out the actual coordinates and type them in to EAGLE.  But even with a simple arrangement of 8 points around a circle... half of them are off.

....then the PCB's show up and something doesn't fit, and then you realize why Eagle is such shit.

If you bothered to look in the manual you would see those are polar coordinates in the form of (radius, angle) centered about the mark, which was the example you originally cited.

Thank you for demonstrating your expertise and your qualifications to criticize this product.

[Corporate666]

The MARK tool doesn't give any new information or provide any new way to do anything - it simply subtracts a constant value from displayed coordinates.  If you are making a footprint for, say, a through hole DIN plug with 8 pins equidistant on a 10mm circle...impossible without a sheet of paper and a calculator, or draw your layout in a real CAD program and get the X/Y coordinates for Eagle.

Try:

  grid mm;
  mark (30 30);
  pad (P 10 0) (P 10 36) (P 10 72) (P 10 108) (P 10 144) (P 10 180) (P 10 216) (P 10 252) (P 10 288) (P 10 324);

That was hard.  I needed several sheets of paper.

If you used several sheets of paper, your points may have been in the right place instead of being off.  The half millimeter difference in half of them may not matter.... or it may, it depends.  But that illustrates the point... if you could have entered an angle and distance, they wouldn't have been off.  Or you could tighten up the grid and get closer, or use a real CAD program to figure out the actual coordinates and type them in to EAGLE.  But even with a simple arrangement of 8 points around a circle... half of them are off.

....then the PCB's show up and something doesn't fit, and then you realize why Eagle is such shit.

If you bothered to look in the manual you would see those are polar coordinates in the form of (radius, angle) centered about the mark, which was the example you originally cited.

Thank you for demonstrating your expertise and your qualifications to criticize this product.

Yup, my bad - a quick off the cuff example I shouldn't have used and caught just after my reply to RX8.

But if you have been using Eagle for some time, you know as well as I do that it is woefully inadequate when it comes to drawing tools.  The real world examples I gave - such as the inability to import DXF's, the inability to show the back of a PCB in correct orientation, the inability to use fonts, the inability to angle copper pours and so much more (all of which are trivial for real PCB design software) are real examples of where Eagle falls short.

It was not that long ago that there was no workaround for arbitrary pad shapes, and even the current "solution" is a hack requiring a ton of adjustment to layers to get the desired result.

[westfw]

the inability to import DXF's, the inability to show the back of a PCB in correct orientation, the inability to use fonts, the inability to angle copper pours [or do arbitrary pad shapes]

IMO, you have an odd list of "requirements."  Perhaps they're important to real commercial PCB design, but they sounds more like "here are some features that I've grown used to in my favorite SW, and EAGLE doesn't have them."   Fancy board shapes, fancy pad shapes...  That's fine, I guess, but it seems very ... personal.  Sorta like me complaining that my convex hull ULP written for EAGLE can't be used in Altium - I might eventually decide that I don't like altium, but I hope I'd have a better reason...

[wraper]

Fancy board shapes, fancy pad shapes...  That's fine, I guess, but it seems very ... personal.  Sorta like me complaining that my convex hull ULP written for EAGLE can't be used in Altium - I might eventually decide that I don't like altium, but I hope I'd have a better reason...

So are are saying: "DIY shall not do anything except square PCBs with strictly square parts"?

[rx8pilot]

FWIW - All of my PCB's have an odd outline generated by my mechanical design software - that is not all that odd.

They are all shapes that take under a minute to draw in SolidWorks or AutoCAD, but would take a very long time in Eagle. It gets worse when I need to make a small change to the outline because it is not parametric. I use the DXF to SCR utility whcih works - its just a lot of steps for something that should be a single click. I have to make a "part" with the outline and then place that part on the layout. Again, weird. It is but one example of something that is possible in Eagle, but needlessly painful and not a feature of the software. Its a generous user that coded a utility and gave it away for free to work around a limitation.

In my opinion, Eagle is too expensive to be as crusty and weird as it is and too cheap to be the industry leading package. I have and will continue to use it until I have enough money to step up. In the end, I have been getting good PCB's. When I go "PRO", I fear that I will look back at a LOT of time wasted working around the limitations of Eagle. I would classify Eagle as a pro-sumer product.

[westfw]

 

"DIY shall not do anything except square PCBs with strictly square parts"?

I mentioned "convex shell" code, didn't I :-)  (example attached.  The blue milling layer is generated from the reference points by the ULP.)

Nevertheless, it's more like "How often do you have a board shape so complex that you need to draw it with an external tool and import it?"  OTOH, I'll say I'd normally fit packages around boards, rather than design boards to exactly fit complex restrictions...

[wraper]

comparisons between Altium Designer and Eagle feel so forced

Well sure.  Eagle costs between 0 and about $2000, while Altium starts at about $9k...

Actually it seems that eagle does have bad bang per buck ratio. The routing area limitation is just ridiculous for the price. For the price they ask for more or less capable version one can buy much more serious software package. Like Proteus for example.

[LabSpokane]

In my opinion, Eagle is too expensive to be as crusty and weird as it is and too cheap to be the industry leading package.

Yup. For the kind of dough being charged, one would think there would be a development budget. It's hard to not seriously consider Circuit Studio given how laborious Eagle is in its current state - not to mention that it won't improve any time soon given its history.

[Corporate666]

the inability to import DXF's, the inability to show the back of a PCB in correct orientation, the inability to use fonts, the inability to angle copper pours [or do arbitrary pad shapes]

IMO, you have an odd list of "requirements."  Perhaps they're important to real commercial PCB design, but they sounds more like "here are some features that I've grown used to in my favorite SW, and EAGLE doesn't have them."   Fancy board shapes, fancy pad shapes...  That's fine, I guess, but it seems very ... personal.  Sorta like me complaining that my convex hull ULP written for EAGLE can't be used in Altium - I might eventually decide that I don't like altium, but I hope I'd have a better reason...

All my stuff is commercial.... the PCB shape/size/layout is almost always driven by something else like an existing housing or a product design requirement that precludes the PCB being the shape it would be if it was designed in a vacuum.  But I don't think the requirements are unusual at all. 

In the case of the ground plane, IIRC it was for a capacitive sensing board and crosshatching the copper pour was either required by the capsense or by the PCB fab, and not being oriented at 45-deg means all your parts sometimes come between horizontals or verticals leaving very little contact to the ground plane.  Cap sensing isn't uncommon.

In the case of fonts on the PCB - I think that is a pretty common need these days.  Unless one is just doing hobby stuff, there will almost always be a logo somewhere... I see much more of it than I did 20 years ago.

And as for arbitrary PCB shapes, I think if you look at the vast majority of electronics these days, "swoopy" cases is the norm - the old "heathkit" style of products are a thing of the past.  When form follows function, it's rare that a PCB can be rectangular.

Arbitrary pad shapes... I use a lot of power LED's, regulators and FET's, and they all (especially LED's) are increasingly using uniquely shaped land patterns.  I think LED's are one of the biggest areas of electronics these days, and from reading various forums, a lot of people have this same issue.

These aren't things that I searched to find wrong with Eagle, these are real limitations I've run into over the years that were a pain in the ass to solve.  Another is component creation - my hasty and faulty off-the-cuff example above aside, surely component creation isn't a special case?  Some datasheets reference pads from a point, some are relatively positioned.  Some use centers of pads for reference, some use boundaries of pads.  Take an arbitrary pad shape referenced from the edge of another arbitrary shape at angles to one another, and something that would take seconds to draw in AutoCAD can mean a lot of scribbling and measuring to calculate the coordinates required in Eagle. 

And speaking of messing with coordinates, panelization is another total kludge in Eagle, and when you start wanting to do v-scoring or add rat bites, or pull traces onto the panel (like in Dave's video where he had programming/testing traces unique to a panel) - that breaks annotation and makes your board un-editable.  Surely panelization isn't an esoteric requirement?

[Corporate666]

In my opinion, Eagle is too expensive to be as crusty and weird as it is and too cheap to be the industry leading package.

Yup. For the kind of dough being charged, one would think there would be a development budget. It's hard to not seriously consider Circuit Studio given how laborious Eagle is in its current state - not to mention that it won't improve any time soon given its history.

Someone mentioned in another thread that Farnell was apparently not as thrilled with the progress of their Eagle investment as when they initially made it, and IIRC were cutting back on R&D and moving support (and money) over to the Altium offering.

That does not bode well for Eagle.  I think you hit the nail on the head... the most accurate description of Eagle is that it hasn't gotten much in the way of new features over the past 15 years, but electronics has changed a hell of a lot in 15 years. 

Another software I use - MasterCAM - had the same problem.  It was the "prosumer" standard, but Windows 2000/XP had been out for 5 years and MasterCAM was still using essentially a DOS interface.  The old timers loved it because they had learned it and all it's quirks.  But MasterCAM released "X" which was all Windows.  There was much whining but it saved the company and made them much larger.

Eagle didn't make the jump and are paying for it.

[rx8pilot]

MasterCAM SUCKED until they made MasterCAM for SolidWorks IMHO. The graphics engine and interface was/is bad but the CNC programming was good. Leveraging the graphics and tools of SolidWorks with the excellent programming of MasterCAM has created an excellent solution. When a model is changed in engineering - the CNC programming is automatically updated. Massive time saver.


......now back to our regularly scheduled program.......

[LabSpokane]

MarkL,

I appreciate where you're coming from. If this discussion was about 2D CAD, I'd be telling folks the same thing about AutoCad. I started in the command line CAD days and that is largely how I use it. I find the command line very efficient and roll my eyes at those who just don't like it because of its quirks.

I have a very different perspective on everything else these days and get frustrated with oddball interfaces. That just stems from being in the position of a Jack of All Trades, and I just dont have time to become an expert like I used to.  I'm sure I can learn to make Eagle do what I need, the question is the time commitment to do so.

So, there you go, hypocrisy in action. 

[rx8pilot]

I am in the Jack of All trades position as well so I have given up being an expert and dislike anything that requires 8hrs of reading. Its not always fair to software and hardware I have to interface with. The magnitude of the learning curve is directly related to my success,  so I am sensitive to convoluted solutions.

Of course trading a learning curve to save $8k is not a terrible trade.

[IanJ]

MarkL,

I appreciate where you're coming from. If this discussion was about 2D CAD, I'd be telling folks the same thing about AutoCad. I started in the command line CAD days and that is largely how I use it. I find the command line very efficient and roll my eyes at those who just don't like it because of its quirks.

I have a very different perspective on everything else these days and get frustrated with oddball interfaces. That just stems from being in the position of a Jack of All Trades, and I just dont have time to become an expert like I used to.  I'm sure I can learn to make Eagle do what I need, the question is the time commitment to do so.

So, there you go, hypocrisy in action. 

My AutoCad experience doesn't go back so many years.....thus I split my sessions half command line, half icons......and in terms of Eagle it's very much the same.

Regarding the topic "beautiful software".....there will always be divided opinions with Eagle........but I wonder, just wonder where hobbyist pcb design would be now if Eagle had never existed. Whether it's had it's day or not you have to admit that Eagle contributed.

Ian.

[Feynman]

I don't quite unterstand all the hate EAGLE is getting. In its niche, it does perfectly what it is intended to: Create simple Boards with a very steep learning curve. Creating parts is a mess and routing big multilayer boards is a torture. Because of the limitations, you could argue that it is way to expensive in its professional version.

[LabSpokane]

I don't quite unterstand all the hate EAGLE is getting. In its niche, it does perfectly what it is intended to: Create simple Boards with a very steep learning curve. Creating parts is a mess and routing big multilayer boards is a torture. Because of the limitations, you could argue that it is way to expensive in its professional version.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman...   :-D

[Wilksey]

If you don't like it, don't use it, simples.

[rx8pilot]

It is not entirely that simple. Once you have invested the time to learn the software and create a workable library - change is tough. I have been researching Altium Designer as a step up from Eagle. The purchase price of about $9k is not small, but it is also only half the battle. The learning curve and getting all my parts in and verified will likely cost me more than $9k all by itself.

Eagle is not my favorite at all, but simply not using it is not an option. I am stuck until I have both time and money to change.

[IanJ]

Once you have invested the time to learn the software and create a workable library - change is tough.

One reason why I am hoping the developer of DEX AutoTrax can see  the light eventually and make some necessary mods to his software which will bring about a killer app. Right now it imports Eagle libraries very nicely. However...........!

Ian.

[Wilksey]

Everyone has options, Diptrace, KiCad, DesignSpark, you just choose not to use them, whether it be for learning curve purposes or whatever.


Everyone keeps banging on about how Element 14 are dropping Eagle because of Circuit Studio or whatever they are calling it now, it's still 3 - 4 x more expensive than the professional Eagle version.  And to be honest, even if they stopped development of Eagle today I would bet that people would still be using the latest version (7.3 at the time of writing) in 20 - 30 years' time.

You have obviously got your reasons for moving away, but it seems to have served you well in the interim, and if you hated it you wouldn't use it, it might not be your favourite, but it gets the job done, and once you have spent time learning how it works, it works well.

It's not the only package with features missing or bugs, and people are still making open source hardware projects with it and producing a lot of content with Eagle, so it can't be that bad!

[Bassman59]

  And to be honest, even if they stopped development of Eagle today I would bet that people would still be using the latest version (7.3 at the time of writing) in 20 - 30 years' time.

That's true -- there are people still clinging to their copies of OrCAD 386+!

[Bebo Connon]

usually, I also use Eagle for my PCB design. can not say good or bad, I think that it is enough if it can reach design requirements.

Here shows a good video shows about the PCB LAYOUT, made by eevblog. quite good to learn from it.

[TinkeringSteve]

EAGLE = Ergonomical Aberration, Gonna Loathe Enormously

"Beautiful", well, it's about as beautiful as the spice shelf Homer built for Marge.

[Psi]

It reminds me of the days of Borland shit software...

I remember that. Actually, it's the same shit that is still being used to write altium designer.
It's one of the reasons that it's so bloated and buggy.

Altium is written in Borland/Delphi?   

If so, what a bunch of buffoons.

They moved 99% of the code over to C many years ago (not sure which C variant). I think there's only a few small modules still in delphi if any now.
Back when Altium was simple and elegant and it was all Delphi. The bloated and buggyness only came after.
So you really shouldn't be dissing Delphi. Any language can produce good or bad code, its all up to the programmer.

Most of the Visual studio IDE was written by the engineers that wrote Delphi. Ages ago there was a Borland <--> Microsoft developer exchange (or employee poaching depending on who you ask).  Microsoft got Borland IDE programmers to help create their new IDE and Borland got MS developers to add .net into Delphi.

Delphi is still very much alive under the Embarcadero company, and they are doing some pretty interesting stuff with cross platform development. One source that compiles and runs natively under Win32, OS X, Android and iOS

[0xdeadbeef]

DipTrace is still developed in Delphi. Actually they switched from Delphi 5 to Delphi XE4 in early 2014, so chances are low they will ever port it to C++ or whatever.
It seems like an odd choice, but around the year 2k when they started, Delphi was still somewhat strong since a lot of programmers used Turbo Pascal in the 90s.