Orcad X looks a lot like Altium

[nctnico]

Uh your post is confusing.
I see a SMT connector Molex 53261-8 yet there is a through-hole padstack info on the right.
14 layer tabs, none of the colours match the shown footprint.

A padstack being in a library, how do I know the revision history and what components are affected by a change to it?
Example PAD60CIR36D if a dimension is changed like soldermask annular ring, are a mystery amount of library components changed?

The idea is that you can browse through padstacks and then choose a suitable one for your footprint. Personally I don't like that workflow. I always make a padstack specific for a footprint or series of footprints (think a range of connectors with different number of pins). That way you can always tweak a padstack specific for that component (series) without messing up padstacks for other components. And no, I don't like to keep tweaked padstacks specific to a component as part of the footprint. The padstack library is leading.

[glenenglish]

To the Cadence person :
I am going to give ORCAD X/allegro a go.... As a 30+ year Altium user, time to change... so not done lightly. I'm probably referred to as a 'pro' user, high speed features , 2000 ball FPGAs, heavy RF..
The big deal for Cadence right now is that Altium are changing their license structure and are pissing off alot of long term perpetual users.  I  think the sum of my maintenance license contribution to Altium is probably over 60 grand over the 35 years since 1990.

So now is the time to look good and fix a few things. and have "Cadence for Altium users" support.   .

Using the 30 day demo, So far I've had quite a few hard crashes. Not great. lost work. (altium is running backups pretty much continuously in the background and you rarely get a hard crash) .
I think this post from Nico is one that needs to be taken seriously. It is a major pissoff of everyone coming from Altium, Nico does describe it well :

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/orcad-x-looks-a-like-like-altium/msg5298823/#msg5298823

That's and the lack of a multiple document interface is minor PITA. So far I have not figured out how to have multiple instances running so I can do this.
regards

[nctnico]

The 'workaround' for having multiple PCB designs open, is using the Allegro viewer application. At least you can browse around in another design. The version I'm running doesn't add the viewer to the menu but it can be found in the installation directory (allegro_free_viewer.exe assuming you are running Windows).

[glenenglish]

So, sorted out the crashes - config/install  error. All good. Only crash I have observed now is on importing anything more than a 2 layer PCB from Altium.
But Cadence  support is taking it seriously .

Apart from that , it's a pretty nice flow. I thought it would be hell changing over, but it is like fresh air.

Nico : and that's a reasonable workaround (using the viewer)
I wonder if the clipboard will work between viewer and editor. Will check

cheers. glen.