Hi!
I thought I'd give you my wish–list of EDA tool features that make a good all–round Schematic/PCB package for personal/student/hobby use!
A) Schematic editor
a) Fully customised colour pallette
b) Proper TTF/OTF support and Unicode Support (Abacom, are you reading this?)
c) Ability to add coloured signal–flow arrows, highlight different power supply/signal lines/buses in different colours, all individually customisable across a schematic
d) Add coloured rectangles/shapes to diagrams to highlight pcb areas in multi- board designs
e) Decent pdf/metafile export
f) Easy library editing, with all the different schematic symbols listed separately. A means of extracting them into pdf format to keep as a separate reference would be a bonus
g) All standard drawing sheets supported up to A0/E format plus custom
h) All standard non–electrical shape drawing & editing tools provided
I) Full colour and b/w printing support
B) PCB editor
a) NO pin, layer count or board size limit
b) Full gerber export
c) TTF/OTF fonts and symbol support for pcb designs – despite all the bleatings of EDA software writers this IS possible – the long gone "Electronics Design Studio" could do this, and you could make a board that looked like Elektor made up to the end of the 80s, with Microgramma component references, signal in/out arrows, chassis/earth symbols, esd logos, etc
c) Good ripup/retry and P/S autorouter that doesn't grind a pc to a halt
c) Variable transparancy option for all layers
d) As with schematics, easy library editing with footprint catalogue creation
e) Fully customisable colour pallette for objects, layers, grids and backgrounds
f) Title block/border support for documenting designs elsewhere (copy/paste into schematic editor would do)
f) Easy to use circle/polar tools for things like valve–bases, circular connectors, etc
g) Full colour and b/w print support with pdf, metafile, etc
h) Fully configurable DRC that works "on the fly"
i) Fully configurable display/snap grid support down to 1um or 0.1 thou
C) GUI
a) Please a good clear GUI that can be learnt by inspection with tool–tips
b) Full pan, zoom and inset facilities that work at adequate speed on all commonly used CPUs/GPUs
c) Customisable toolbars, etc
D) Documentation
Separate manuals for GUI/basic functions, schematic editor, pcb editor and tutorials. Also Sch and PCB library symbol and footprint index/list export support as separate documents that can be printed out for reference, like you used to get when EDA tools first came out
Fully integrated help files provided as standard
E) OS
W32/W64, Linux & Mac
F) Offline support/update
Fully usable off line without an internet connection. Updates every 6/12 months adequate for most purposes. NO compulsory paid–for maintainence.
G) Price
Best of all free, but if my wish–list is too much for an open source/free platform then I'd say £150 max!
Is there anything that comes close to my "wish list" already out there? i would be very interested in Member's opinions, both in where the current offerings leave out altogether, and in what is done very well and also done very badly.
Unfortunately, I'm not software–design experienced, my need is for a fast, easy to learn cheap tool with no arbitrary design, pin, size or layer limits that will draw schematics to EPE Magazine quality – the nearest tool I can remember that could do this with PCB TTF/OTF support was the long gone Electronic Design Studio – this was a UK product.
Chris Williams
PS!
I've been reading the KiCad development/Feature Requests pages and apparently TTF/OTF support has been asked for repeatedly over the years, but the developers make out it's too difficult!
Can anyone enlighten me as to why?
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