Author Topic: DipTrace Version 2.3 is out today! (Read 25419 times)

reagle · « **on:** October 19, 2012, 02:39:31 pm »

Nice mix of updates:

Online DRC - dynamically checks design rules while you add objects, route traces or edit anything in layout. Static DRC check was improved and optimized.
3D VRML 2.0 Export of PC board. Allows you to export solid body of your board with models to mechanical CAD.
Custom Non-Signal layers.
Arranging PCB components by hierarchical blocks. Copying routing/placement between similar blocks.
Automatic showing/hiding ratlines for copper pours depending on pouring areas and traces ("Hide Net Ratlines" option has been removed).
Pour priority for copper pour.
Separate "Place Ratline" mode, no more ratlines in "default" and "edit traces" modes.
"Manual Route" mode hotkey (~).
Configuring and saving filenames for Gerber export by layers (name and extension for each layer).
Exporting dimensions into Gerber and DXF.
Checking pin/wire superimposing without connection in Schematic ERC.
Saving connections without wires while copying/pasting parts in Schematic.
Moving objects between pages in Schematic.
Rearranging sheets in Schematic.
Saving "open/save dialog" initial folders by file type (globally for all programs).
Blocking file by the program while editing it. Overwriting by second/network appearance is prohibited.
Backward compatibility of binary file formats starting from this version (it can open files of further versions).
Windows 8 compatibility.
Ordering engine has been added (see File/Order PCB).
Online check for new versions and DipTrace news.
Library update: 8000+ new components, euro symbols, new patterns.

reagle · « **Reply #1 on:** October 19, 2012, 03:24:53 pm »

Hmm, and now I can complain

1. Even though I am on their newsletter list, no notification came in

2. It would be nice to see a list of details to go with the release notes. Almost like (gasp) Altium does on their live blog when a new release is posted.
Here is where the new feature is, here is how it works, etc

3. Can't' seem to make online DRC to do anything, or maybe it needs enabling. It will let me short traces with no complaints for example or put parts on top of each other

novarm44 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 19, 2012, 09:34:41 pm »

1. Already sent. Seems you noticed it earlier, than we updated all installers and web-site before sending emails.

2. We will think on making video blog about new features or something like that in the future.

3. You should enable it in Verification / Design Rules.

reagle · « **Reply #3 on:** October 19, 2012, 10:33:55 pm »

Hey, thanks for answering!

I did receive an email later, but it was " We have published new build of DipTrace (2.2.0.7) today"

"3. You should enable it in Verification / Design Rules."
Duh, didn't think to look there! Works like a charm now.

Igor

novarm44 · « **Reply #4 on:** October 20, 2012, 04:57:12 pm »

Quote

I did receive an email later, but it was " We have published new build of DipTrace (2.2.0.7) today"

That was a bug of phplist system - I noticed that when sent it already (several hundreds of subscribers including me received that email for some reason). You should also receive second correct email (I queued the new email only, and seems old email was queued before and not removed - didn't notice that).

shebu18 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 20, 2012, 05:07:07 pm »

In PCB layout you still can not hide the cooper pour ratlines, or am I wrong?

novarm44 · « **Reply #6 on:** October 20, 2012, 08:42:03 pm »

Quote

In PCB layout you still can not hide the cooper pour ratlines, or am I wrong?

It should hide them automatically when you pour copper pour if both ends of the ratline are electrically connected by copper pours and nets. In previous version it hides ratline if "Hide Net Ratlines" box is checked and both ends are inside copper pour border polygon.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #7 on:** October 23, 2012, 02:58:49 pm »

Quote

Arranging PCB components by hierarchical blocks. Copying routing/placement between similar blocks.

my voice was heard!

now i hope the Novarm team can consider this...
1) hiding the "silkscreen" when in 3d preview (currently only components and open vias option available). sometime i want to see electrical connection only with no fancy texting and bounding boxes silk

2) bug: wrong silkscreen placement when converting to gerbers. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)
3) bug: 3d components sometime only showing ghost shadow (ie grayscaled pcb behind the components), but reloading will render correctly. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)
4) when will be the "built in" more robust spice simulation?

thats so far i can spot. i hope its not too much, except #4, i know that can be a hard decision

novarm44 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 23, 2012, 04:14:20 pm »

Quote

2) bug: wrong silkscreen placement when converting to gerbers. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)
3) bug: 3d components sometime only showing ghost shadow (ie grayscaled pcb behind the components), but reloading will render correctly. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)

Please send examples to us or point me to mantis bug numbers if you reported them.
Especially the first bug - gerber export should be ALWAYS correct. We do not experience any problems with this feature ourselves

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #9 on:** October 23, 2012, 06:14:34 pm »

Quote from: novarm44 on October 23, 2012, 04:14:20 pm

Quote
2) bug: wrong silkscreen placement when converting to gerbers. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)
3) bug: 3d components sometime only showing ghost shadow (ie grayscaled pcb behind the components), but reloading will render correctly. not sure if its fixed in this version (or full paid version)
Please send examples to us or point me to mantis bug numbers if you reported them.
Especially the first bug - gerber export should be ALWAYS correct. We do not experience any problems with this feature ourselves

i think i'll just report here in case someone else could reproduce it. if you need my original file, please ask i'll PM (do you need my whole library as well? $:-\$ ). i'm running in ver2.3 now. i cannot reproduce bug #3, i guess its corrected. for bug #2, its still there in ver2.3. please refer to picture below.

1e: my bottom pcb. red arrow indicating the correct silk, please note letter A, I, and O.
2e: when i view in 3D, the letters start to dislocated (i believe i've mistaken it with gerber export, i think its your application translating the silk, not gerber export module.
3e: preview in "export gerbers" showing bottom silk. dislocated A, I, O (if analyzed closely, that silk will sit on top of a solder mask which can cause problem when the order arrived from fab house)
4e: after the process, whether i export or cancel the preview, the pcb layout program now showing dislocated A, I, O. to correct this problem i have to "update component" from library. i hope thats clear and may help you in the next bug fix.

sorry i'm not sure i understand "mantis bug numbers", i'm a newbie, sorry.

novarm44 · « **Reply #10 on:** October 24, 2012, 05:38:33 pm »

Can you send this board to support [at] diptrace [ dot ] com for verification.
We do not need any libraries.

Or you can just send wrong component (as library or PCB file).

poorchava · « **Reply #11 on:** October 27, 2012, 09:35:18 am »

There's some problem (at least was in the beta) with dxf export of copper. I wanted to mill a simple board on my cnc router, and it turns out that copper pours seem to be omitted when exporting copper outline.

http://www.diptrace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6591

Other than that still no way to change footprints in multiple components (eg. i have different part in the library for each resistor value,and i have to update them all one by one if i change some minor detail in the 0805 footprint). Also the footprint has to be re-selected from the library. I would kil for a possibility to just select some parts and click 'update footprints'.

There's still the annoying feature that when you select multiple parts and rotate them without grouping, they rotate each around it's own center rather than rotating whole group around its center. I know that for example CadStar works like that too, but that seems really counter intuitive. Maybe a button to choose the rotation mode would be a good idea?

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #12 on:** October 27, 2012, 10:39:20 am »

1) occasionally my objects/parts is off-grided. when i remove them they keep snapping into the grid, and then later at another time when i re-select the same part its off-grided again

maybe because i renewed pcb from updated schematic? not sure. sorry too busy to go into diptrace forum hope novarm guy can re-transmit the message to Mr Michael Jackson? or something in support team.

2) adding vias to a net was a charm, now i have to manually click the edit net (place ratline) toolbar up above.

shebu18 · « **Reply #13 on:** October 27, 2012, 05:00:52 pm »

When will diptrace be native on linux?

Sent from my GT-I5800 using Tapatalk

novarm44 · « **Reply #14 on:** October 27, 2012, 05:04:23 pm »

For copper pours it doesn't make outlines while exporting outline for G-code - please use polygons in signal layers instead.

Quote

Other than that still no way to change footprints in multiple components (eg. i have different part in the library for each resistor value,and i have to update them all one by one if i change some minor detail in the 0805 footprint). Also the footprint has to be re-selected from the library. I would kil for a possibility to just select some parts and click 'update footprints'.

We have this in to-do, but it is not implemented yet.

Quote

There's still the annoying feature that when you select multiple parts and rotate them without grouping, they rotate each around it's own center rather than rotating whole group around its center. I know that for example CadStar works like that too, but that seems really counter intuitive. Maybe a button to choose the rotation mode would be a good idea?

Ctrl+G to group, then rotate and Ctrl+Alt+G to ungroup. In PCB there is also feature to "rotate selected" (see in Edit submenu).

Quote

1) occasionally my objects/parts is off-grided. when i remove them they keep snapping into the grid, and then later at another time when i re-select the same part its off-grided again maybe because i renewed pcb from updated schematic? not sure. sorry too busy to go into diptrace forum hope novarm guy can re-transmit the message to Mr Michael Jackson? or something in support team.

Maybe the real grid is different from visible - you should zoom in to check that. If you will have time - better provide us with the video of the bug.

Quote

2) adding vias to a net was a charm, now i have to manually click the edit net (place ratline) toolbar up above.

Actually this is improvement: "separate mode to place ratline" requested by many of customers. In previous versions ratlines were placed in Default and Edit Traces modes, that was a problem while working with the board (you was able to make ratline occasionally).

Quote

Can anyone point out how the new 'moving objects between pages in schematic' feature is implemented? I am perhaps looking in the wrong place but I can't see to find anything different in this respect from version 2.2, and the help file doesn't seem to clarify it either. I am a new user of the software so perhaps am looking in the wrong place.

I did try to ask this on the official diptrace forum but my post was auto-deleted for some reason.

Right click on the object and see "Change Sheet" item in sub-menu. I will also review help-files as some new features are not there yet.
We moderate first message from new user (remove 10-20 spammers daily), probably your message is on-hold yet.

Quote

When will diptrace be native on linux?

I don't know. We plan to move to Delphi XE3 with VCL (currently DipTrace is developed with Delphi 5 - made in 1999

), then switch to FireMonkey and make native Mac version. Maybe they will also support Linux anytime soon.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #15 on:** October 27, 2012, 05:11:59 pm »

Quote from: novarm44 on October 27, 2012, 05:04:23 pm

Maybe the real grid is different from visible - you should zoom in to check that. If you will have time - better provide us with the video of the bug.

i dont have time for video sorry, but its getting in my nerve when i had to realign a route keepout 3 times! maybe it was due to i keep changing grid between 0.32 and 0.16 but i'm pretty sure they are all aligned to 0.32, i know which one that aligned to 0.16. i also frequently change origin that might be the cause as well? not sure. i'll live by it until someone else make another report sigh. it was not there in ver 2.2

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #16 on:** October 27, 2012, 10:08:00 pm »

1) copy and paste route keepout will not keeping copper pour out unless we open property box, make sure its route keepout (which it already is) and click ok.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #17 on:** October 28, 2012, 09:31:23 am »

here specially made for the thread... out of alignment bug when we change origin. please note the dotted grid and see the "out of alignment" in origin 2 (below), i'm newbie in eda but i think this should not be happening. changing origin will result in multiple coordinate system parts alignment. this is very bad i want to punch or bite something biological after keeping aligning my board outline for so many times

i dont mind if the bug is brought from previous version but i recall i never had this problem previously. upgrade something please upgrade to better or at least the same, but certainly not worst like this, this is diptrace version 1.7 darwinian movement!

poorchava · « **Reply #18 on:** October 29, 2012, 11:27:18 am »

Quote

For copper pours it doesn't make outlines while exporting outline for G-code - please use polygons in signal layers instead.

But the polygon will not avoid other signals or go around keepouts, am I right? So I would have to draw outline of every polygon completly manually, whereas using copper pours this can be automated to some extent. I mean with the design where i stumbled upon this, it would be doable - it's not that complicated. But on some more complicated smps design drawing all polygons completly by hand would elongate the process alot.

novarm44 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2012, 06:49:44 am »

Quote

here specially made for the thread... out of alignment bug when we change origin. please note the dotted grid and see the "out of alignment" in origin 2 (below), i'm newbie in eda but i think this should not be happening. changing origin will result in multiple coordinate system parts alignment. this is very bad i want to punch or bite something biological after keeping aligning my board outline for so many times

Any chance to see coordinates of mounting hole center and how it is aligned to the grid on the first image?
The grid is always aligned to origin, so if you have, for example, .5 grid and 1.2 between board outline and hole center, when you move origin from board outline to hole center - the grid will be shifted to 0.2 as distance is not multiple to the grid step.

Quote

But the polygon will not avoid other signals or go around keepouts, am I right? So I would have to draw outline of every polygon completly manually, whereas using copper pours this can be automated to some extent. I mean with the design where i stumbled upon this, it would be doable - it's not that complicated. But on some more complicated smps design drawing all polygons completly by hand would elongate the process alot.

For milling method copper pour is actually external copper area of the board, which is separated from pads/traces while milling. If you want to get solid area - just use shape. How to mill copper pour, isolated from pads/traces with specified gap, as both copper pour and pads/traces are parts of layout? If we have copper pour clearance bigger, than mill diameter - it's possible, but I don't see any sense in it as you already have external copper area.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2012, 10:23:15 am »

Quote from: novarm44 on October 30, 2012, 06:49:44 am

Any chance to see coordinates of mounting hole center and how it is aligned to the grid on the first image?

and this become weirder and weirder (1st image). the coordinate is not multiple of 0.16mm! i never touch those coordinates manually. i only rely on the diptrace grid system. editing coordinate manually is a good feature but lets dont use it as grid reference or origin? if ever we want to limit or snap our design to 0.16 (or 0.32 or else for this matter) diptrace should have it's own grid reference, not relying on what user input xy manually, it will screw the rest of component placement, but as i said, i never touch those manual editing XY coordinate, so its weird. FWIW, the mounting holes and board outline was copy pasted from another file, previous file created in diptrace 2.2XX.

ok to make thing simpler, i started a whole brand new pcb editing from zero, first thing i did? mounting hole placement, using 0.32 mm grid, here's the coordinate result (2nd pic), can you see it? WTF? i think i get it, "pentium floating point operation rounding off" error? except its worse. it should be 0.32 not 0.318! if i'm the programmer, i treat this as serious bug that need immideate fix! duh i should be a beta tester and get 95% discount on unlimited version

sorry i dont mean to put diptrace down by putting the report here infact i very like it its an evolution! its just i cant be in many forums at one time and i have many other things to do. diptrace representative presence here is actually a blessing. thanks to diptrace team, full thumbs up to you!

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #21 on:** October 30, 2012, 11:37:26 am »

i tried to reproduce it in diptrace 2.2X i also notice this 0.318 error (or is it intentional? i dont know) but i cant trace it down to my pattern library its now "format unsupported", its not a good practice to keep changing file format frequently it should be the last programmer's effort. so i'm doomed to 2.3 now sigh. btw i edited and attached my library to this particular pattern and please ask your programmer why i cant align this through hole pad to 0.16mm grid? or why it became nonaligned in the first place? maybe i manually edited the pad spacing? deleted the other pad etc i dont remember what happended. if so as i mentioned, diptrace should stick to its own grid reference to avoid this mess. this may cause the mentioned bug i'm not sure this the least i can do, hope it helps.

Kremmen · « **Reply #22 on:** October 30, 2012, 03:54:05 pm »

I got intrigued about this and tried to reproduce the error. But i cannot. I have the latest DipTrace and i cannot see any of the errors you have mentioned. All libraries i have created using 2.2 work flawlessly in 2.3, and i also cannot cause the misalignment problem, no matter what i do. I'm not saying that you are seeing things, but could it be something in your particular setup or the way you use Diptrace?
Just in case the rest of us have missed something, could you outline step by step what you do to cause the misalignment. I can then repeat the steps and test on my machine whether the same happens here and report back.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #23 on:** October 30, 2012, 05:20:44 pm »

the problem was i didnt know what happened and was not aware sorry i thought diptrace programmer would know better. btw, now a bit organized... i managed to produce it from scratch.

1) make a pattern library (22.lib) with 2mm spacing and pad size (i think this is where the problem begins)
2) make another pattern 11.lib just for testing scratch from new
3) load both library into diptrace pcb and place both parts on the pcb area (0.16mm grid)
4) make rectangle board outline and try changing origin between part 11's and 22's pads, there will be 5 pads, try all you'll see the grid shifting.

just for example i attached the sample files, try aligning the board outline straight in 22.dip by moving top left corner alone if you can. if you get the same result as i am you need to move all corner to realign them straight rectangle, and then changing the origin again to another pad until the grid shifts, you'll have another headache realigning board outline.

please tell me if you get what i get. or its me thats mistaken i should have never made the 2mm spacing and 2mm sized pad?

Kremmen · « **Reply #24 on:** October 30, 2012, 09:00:46 pm »

OK, i followed your steps. I didn't actually create the pads since the included file was clear enough. I could see how the pads were done in the lib files.
I also believe i know what your problem is basically; different nonaligning grids. I am all the time pissed off with the imperial grid used in most of Diptrace lib components. Doesn't match the metric grid i use exclusively and as a consequence the pins in schematics seldom align with my metric components. But no big deal as the symbols are all wrong anyway, i use IEC symbols and those only, so have had to redraw everything anyway to a metric grid.
But back to your issue. The four pad footprint was created using a 2x2 mm grid. The pad centers are aligned at grid points and so far so good. But now, when you insert these footprints on a grid that is not evenly divisible with the creation grid ( 2mm vs 0.16mm), some pads will necessarily fall on points not on the grid. In itself that is not a problem; you will encounter all kinds of footprints, both metric and imperial dimensioned that don't fall on any grid you care to use.
Now, wherever your coordinate origin is, if you define the board outline using the grid, the outline will naturally be aligned on the points of the current grid. However, if you next switch the grid origin to a point not currently coinciding with the grid (such as between pads created on the 2 mm grid, while using a 0.16 mm grid) none of your new grid points will coincide with the previous points either. Features like the board outline are not affected *provided you do not touch them*. But move a corner and it will naturally snap to the current grid while all the other vertices stay on the points of the previous grid. Now you lost straight angles and will have to move all the other corners as well.

But let me suggest that this is not the proper workflow how you should define the board outline (or many other features as well). Sometimes you have a size constraint, sometimes you can freely use whatever real estate you need, and sometimes the board is a curious shape mandated by some quirk of the enclosure where it has to fit including various holes and cutouts in specific locations. The workflow should reflect this to make life easiest. There are many approaches you can take but such mechanical features are nearly always best created by using specific coordinates instead of relying on a grid. Can be done of course if the board is a simple rectangle and in such a case i do use the grid.
Easy solution: Just lock the board outline when you are happy, then it will not move whatever you do with the grids.

This is just me but the grids i work with in both capture and layout are 0.05 - 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.5 - 1 - 2 - 5 - 10 mm where all bigger grids are evenly divisible into the smaller grids. Everything must coincide with one of those grids - only individual footprints are created with exact dimensions.

P.S. Why 0.16 / 0.32 grid? Where does that come from?

P.P.S. OK for some specific things i have also the 1.27, 2.54 and 5.08 grids to properly align things like connector pins etc.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #25 on:** October 30, 2012, 10:57:52 pm »

yeah maybe what i reported is intentional or left as is as a feature. i demonstarated the simple board layout, i was editing a reallife circuit where i have components where they have route keepout below multipoints polygon, i was too particular i keep re-arranging the components and origin, in effect i need to re-align the route keepout as well, it was an annoyance. but i keep wondering why its not happening when i was using ver2.2X, a mystery.

Kremmen · « **Reply #26 on:** October 31, 2012, 07:13:31 am »

Actually what i am saying is you are facing a fact of life. Incompatible snap grids will always cause this phenomenon, and it has nothing to do with Diptrace as a product, or any other product for that matter. Switching the coordinate origin to a point not on the current snap grid will cause all future grid point to be off as well.
The easy workaround: don't switch the origin to a nonaligned point. Failing that, don't touch features (pads, vertexes, whatnot) that are not on the current grid. Or lock them so they don't move whatever you do. Failing even that, you are basically out of luck and nothing can prevent this issue from occurring.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #27 on:** October 31, 2012, 09:00:02 am »

Quote from: Kremmen on October 31, 2012, 07:13:31 am

Switching the coordinate origin to a point not on the current snap grid will cause all future grid point to be off as well.

thats why i proposed to diptrace team so the app will use its own grid reference system, by saying that it means whenever i try to change origin to a non-aligned pad/component etc the origin will not snap exactly to that non-aligned coordinate, but snap to the closest grid of diptrace's reference coordinate system. so it will not counterfeit the "snap to grid" features. the only way that can make a component be off the grid is using manual XY input or snap "enable" or "disable" which the user should be intentionally or aware by clicking that feature.

now to the non-aligned pad, sometime we are constrained by real life components that are not metric or imperial aligned, so we 'll need to design pattern or footprint that is off the grid, but when we place on pcb we need them to be metric aligned. accidentally snapping origin to this "off the grid" pad will screw the alignment and diptrace failed to notify this to the user. i think this is where a software should do its role, by automatically avoiding this confusion or notifying user.

FWIW, i used origin and ruler feature to place a "very" symetric circuit and find the centre an distances of components on my differential probe (symetric between +ve and -ve signal path), a few mils off should be no problem at all from technical point of view, but you know when people get too particular like me

the problem arises

but if diptrace team cannot listen or find the matter too trivial, then i have to live within the limitation, thats how the world works anyway

Kremmen · « **Reply #28 on:** October 31, 2012, 11:34:56 am »

Really, the Novarm boys would be the right ones to respond to this, but let me just ventilate with you...

Quote from: Mechatrommer on October 31, 2012, 09:00:02 am

Quote from: Kremmen on October 31, 2012, 07:13:31 am
Switching the coordinate origin to a point not on the current snap grid will cause all future grid point to be off as well.
thats why i proposed to diptrace team so the app will use its own grid reference system, by saying that it means whenever i try to change origin to a non-aligned pad/component etc the origin will not snap exactly to that non-aligned coordinate, but snap to the closest grid of diptrace's reference coordinate system. so it will not counterfeit the "snap to grid" features. the only way that can make a component be off the grid is using manual XY input or snap "enable" or "disable" which the user should be intentionally or aware by clicking that feature.

But in such a case why are you targeting the snap point of a feature? Why not move the origin to an existing grid point? That way the grid stays aligned. I grant that i haven't tested how well that works if the snap point is embedded under a heap of layout features. Possibly there could be an additional selection tools to only enble snapping to specified classes of layout elements, such as exist in "proper" CAD programs.

Quote

now to the non-aligned pad, sometime we are constrained by real life components that are not metric or imperial aligned, so we 'll need to design pattern or footprint that is off the grid, but when we place on pcb we need them to be metric aligned. accidentally snapping origin to this "off the grid" pad will screw the alignment and diptrace failed to notify this to the user. i think this is where a software should do its role, by automatically avoiding this confusion or notifying user.

When you have created a footprint, the pad to pad spacings and other features of that footprint are fixed. The footprint has an insertion point that will fall on your current grid. All features of the footprint then fall on wherever they are in relation to the insertion point. There is no way around this. The only thing you can do is to make the insertion point to coincide with a pad or other key feature. Then that pad or feature is guaranteed to always be on the current grid. All other pads will keep their relative positions, never mind what grid size you have. Otherwise i can only say that you get what you ask for. IMO the system should do exactly what it in fact does. Notification while could be there, should definitely be configurable on/off because i for one would never want or need it.

Quote

FWIW, i used origin and ruler feature to place a "very" symetric circuit and find the centre an distances of components on my differential probe (symetric between +ve and -ve signal path), a few mils off should be no problem at all from technical point of view, but you know when people get too particular like me the problem arises but if diptrace team cannot listen or find the matter too trivial, then i have to live within the limitation, thats how the world works anyway

I would think that should be easily doable to the precision you require?

arekm · « **Reply #29 on:** November 01, 2012, 07:31:44 am »

Unfortunately noticed that DipTrace 2.3 can't be installed on windows 8 (did upgrade from xp) due to some silly programmer check:

"ERROR

Novarm DipTrace (2.3) is not allowed to run on Win8 (6.2)

Setup aborted!"

Whoops, notified diptrace support.

In meantime DesignSpark PCB, Sprint-Layout, Eagle, Altium Viewer didn't have any problems with windows 8.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #30 on:** November 01, 2012, 08:22:32 am »

Quote from: Kremmen on October 31, 2012, 11:34:56 am

When you have created a footprint, the pad to pad spacings and other features of that footprint are fixed. The footprint has an insertion point that will fall on your current grid. All features of the footprint then fall on wherever they are in relation to the insertion point. There is no way around this.

should be like that! except diptrace gives more, we can snap the origin to the individual pad's center or coordinate, which is non aligned, not just the "insertion point"! later, insertion points of the other newly created or moved components in relation to the origin which is now refering to the off-the-grid pad will be you guess what? "off the grid" from previous components (insertion point) which used standard grid referenced earlier. your statement here supports my objective and requirement. i'm tired to argue any longer its useless imho, since its just a matter of diptrace team want to take it into account or not, all matters have been pointed out. cheers

Kremmen · « **Reply #31 on:** November 01, 2012, 04:17:03 pm »

Yes, yes. We are talking about the exact same thing but i don't really see what your problem is. This is not a failure of the product - it is the nature of the thing. Unless you are asking for some kind of configuration safeguard that would prevent you from doing that. Which is kind of my point - if you don't want to botch the grid alignment, then just don't do it. You can define any selectable point as the grid origin, so if you pick one off-grid you get what you asked for. Duh?

novarm44 · « **Reply #32 on:** November 01, 2012, 04:45:33 pm »

Quote

Unfortunately noticed that DipTrace 2.3 can't be installed on windows 8 (did upgrade from xp) due to some silly programmer check:

"ERROR

Novarm DipTrace (2.3) is not allowed to run on Win8 (6.2)

Setup aborted!"

It should be compatible with Windows 8 - we have tested installers on both Windows 8 - 32 bit and 64 bit. The problem may appear only if you are trying to run 64-bit installer on 32-bit version of Windows.

arekm · « **Reply #33 on:** November 03, 2012, 07:31:35 pm »

That was indeed 32 vs 64bit problem. Thanks!

poorchava · « **Reply #34 on:** November 06, 2012, 01:34:37 pm »

Two questions:
-is there some setting to display network names by default? Seems a bit cumbersome to enable displaying network name for every net, especially that you cannot do that by bulk, only one by one
-is there a way to set up how component informations are displayed? For example I usually want to display refdes and value, but every time i have to change it by hand.

carveone · « **Reply #35 on:** December 27, 2012, 12:08:47 pm »

Folder permissions:
C:\Program Files (x86)\DipTrace : Everyone/Full Control.
Riiight...

Edit: On install, Diptrace adds an "Everyone:Full Control" ACL, recursively and explicitly (ie: it's not inherited) to every single file and folder in "My Documents". I'm speechless.

Gridstop · « **Reply #36 on:** January 11, 2013, 01:44:24 am »

I really thought you must have been kidding about the permissions thing, or mistaken or something.... but good god.

On mine at least, the 'Everyone: Full Control' seemed to be applied to the root /Documents, not recursively to every file inside. (Thankfully, I can't image how long that would take to fix.)

However, in Program Files/Diptrace, it is set on *Every* file individually.

This is probably the most atrocious programming I've seen in years. Unbelievable.

You can fix it by setting the permissions properly (Full access to Admins and System, Users has read, list, read & execute) on the root folder and using icacls from an elevated command prompt:
icacls "C:\Program Files\DipTrace\*" /reset /T

You can do similar on your My Documents or anything else that it screwed up.

It works fine since there's actually NO REASON WHATSOEVER for anyone to need write access in the Program Files folder normally. Just save your projects and libraries in the My Documents/DipTrace, like you're supposed to.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #37 on:** January 13, 2013, 06:36:44 am »

just a minor GUI detail and CnC... when unrouting component, the "unroute traces" is at the top. when unrouting trace, the menu is at the below. i perpetually tried to search from top and bottom during practical usage, since they are closely related. my suggestion, move the "unroute trace" menu to the top same position as "unroute traces" for component or vice versa. please refer to attached image. keep up the good work.

novarm44 · « **Reply #38 on:** January 15, 2013, 07:24:55 pm »

Quote

Folder permissions:
C:\Program Files (x86)\DipTrace : Everyone/Full Control.
Riiight...

Edit: On install, Diptrace adds an "Everyone:Full Control" ACL, recursively and explicitly (ie: it's not inherited) to every single file and folder in "My Documents". I'm speechless.

We discovered that ourselves a few days ago from Arduino forum and seems found the reason of problem in installer settings, actually enabling that option was a fix requested by users - we will check all things more in-depth, turn it off for further updates and rebuild 2.3.0.2 installation packages shortly.

Regards,
Stanislav Ruev
DipTrace Team

poorchava · « **Reply #39 on:** January 16, 2013, 08:44:12 am »

Huh, after using Diptrace for a longer while.... ME wantz m0ar HOTKEYZ!

And srsly, a hotkey for every option possible is an essential thing, also an ability to remap those hotkeys to your liking. That would tremendously decrease design time (less 'point-and-click').

novarm44 · « **Reply #40 on:** January 16, 2013, 06:03:51 pm »

Configurable hot-keys are already in project management system (where we manage current tasks), so we will try to implement it soon.

p.s. Security issue already has been fixed and installer for 2.3.0.2 re-uploaded.

novarm44 · « **Reply #41 on:** January 21, 2013, 09:16:37 am »

Quote

p.s. Security issue already has been fixed and installer for 2.3.0.2 re-uploaded.

After changing that we got many user complains that files can not be executed or saved under user accounts in Win 64-bit. Also some libraries inconsistency issues. We decided to return things back, but now only new DipTrace folders have such permissions (not My Documents folder). Currently our programmers and sys admin trying to find the reason why it doesn't work on some 64-bit systems without this option (it works on our PCs with standard user account settings). We will probably work with users who have problems with access and try to fix this issue again when come from DesignCon.

poorchava · « **Reply #42 on:** January 22, 2013, 12:01:21 pm »

First thing i ever do when installing Win7 is to disable UAC and similar stuff. I've had many cases when UAC blocked some process/operation during installation process to display a warning, and when user allowed the operation to continue, it somehow screwed up the installation process. Program seemed to have installed properly, but it malfunctioned later because of missing or inaccessible file. And UAC is worth shit to begin with. There are better tools for managing user privileges and protection from various threats.

I think that problems the users are having with installation without granting special permissions, comes from system misconfiguration (such as not nurning the UAC off)

carveone · « **Reply #43 on:** January 23, 2013, 01:58:43 pm »

At least Novarm are addressing the security issue. I suppose there can be issues with older Delphi libraries assuming things they shouldn't and causing permission issues (at least, that's what my brother tells me). I had one such issue with a Samsung utility on a samsung notebook. I asked them about it and got "Reinstall Windows" back. Thanks Samsung, you suck.

The answer was to use the Process Monitor utility from Sysinternals which show me that a file was being opened "Read/write" (it wasn't being written to, just read). I could then fix that myself with a permission change. Samsung weren't interested in the fix (just change the parameters to CreateFile).

The problem for novarm lies with institutions such as universities. If you want to get in on that action, the program must run as a limited user and needs to be structured so that installed libraries/documents/examples/scripts etc work pathwise. eg: Users documents directory first, then installation directory. User can alter their own libs, but not installed libs. Eagle works like this (but only after you beat your head off the wall for a bit first).

Edit: UAC may be annoying some times but it was designed to solve a single problem: The total refusal of developers, including those in MS, to conform to even the most basic file permission structure. "I'll write to the windows directory if I want to and if a anyone has an issue with this, too bad" was the attitude. In Unix, you cannot blithely write to files in /etc and then say it's someone else's fault. UAC has made developers care by getting their manager's attention - their app works but annoys the user. I'd say UAC will be phased out over the next 10 years.

novarm44 · « **Reply #44 on:** February 05, 2013, 10:29:11 pm »

Quote

Sometimes throwing ''bricks in glass houses'' is not a good idea

If you will follow the thread you mentioned you will see what I mean in the posts after mine. Having full-time testers and engineers is the must for such kind of software. I believe you are great programmer and use latest tools, but in my opinion that is not only the thing you need to develop great and stable EDA. Anyway all these talks about nothing: my goal is building EDA company independent from myself in all aspects, your goal if I understand correctly, is making succeed EDA tool yourself and be proud of that. Wish all of us reach our goals.

poorchava · « **Reply #45 on:** February 06, 2013, 12:09:22 pm »

I think there is no point in comparing DEX with DipTrace. They obviously belong to different market segments.

DEX is on par with toys like ExpressPCB, KiCad, gEDA, DesignSpark, Freepcb and the like. They can be used to teach people the basics of pcb design, but nothing else. All of those of course have 3D preview and autorouter, which are basically useless for that kind of software. 3D mode's primary purpose is to verify collisions with mechanical parts in 3D cad (Catia, Solidworks etc.). this implies that the pcb cad has to be able to export ITEP and/or IGES format to be useful, otherwise it's only "+3 to wank factor". I know quite many pcb designers, and none of them uses autorouters/autoplacers. And we're talking Mentor/Cadence/Zuken level autorouters here.

Diptrace and Eagle i believe are meant for smaller businesses and hobby use, in other words people who cannot afford or don't need hyper expensive packages. DipTrace of course also has 3D mode (but pretty much useless thanks to lack of STEP/IGES import and export) and autorouter (which surprisingly can produce half-decent layout, which is an achievement for an autorouter). I also think that DipTrace developers are pretty responsive to feature requests, unlike Eagle or bigger players.

Mechatrommer · « **Reply #46 on:** February 06, 2013, 12:22:53 pm »

i believe novarm44 and ilija should really separate themself from one another. for a software developer position, they risk look unprofessional if they continue the tug war. let their product and support service tells the story.

novarm44 · « **Reply #47 on:** February 06, 2013, 01:41:23 pm »

BTW video from DesignCon:
http://realtimewith.net/pages/rtwvprofile.cgi?rtwvcatid=13&rtwvid=2697

Agreed with Mechatrommer - that is already a long story (see who owns "diptrace" name at Yahoo! groups http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/diptrace/

) and I don't understand some points of it myself.

BravoV · « **Reply #48 on:** February 06, 2013, 02:03:48 pm »

Quote from: novarm44 on February 06, 2013, 01:41:23 pm

that is already a long story (see who owns "diptrace" name at Yahoo! groups http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/diptrace/ ) and I don't understand some points of it myself.

Actually that is a good for your business, cause sometimes it might mean the competing party's business is in bad shape, and desperately had to do that kind of dodgy campaigns.

Just stay mature & sincere when it comes to deal with this kind of thingy, focus on making better product & support, "potential" customers and existing ones are not blind.


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