Free PCBCAD packages.

[thinkfat]

I tried Freerouting a while ago, found the results adequate but not spectacular. There is no integration or interaction between Freerouting and KiCad beyond export and import in a compatible file format.

[nctnico]

(3) Start the software - can you immediately get a "Hello World" working?  That's called "affordance".  Diptrace has it, so does KiCad, but Diptrace has more of it!
(4) Use the software - does it "feel good" or does it get in the way?  Does it use intuitive keyboard shortcuts? Good use of right-click menus?

IMHO these are not good metrics perse. Some software has a workflow which may seem non-intiutive or even wrong at first sight but can turn out to be very productive once you get the hang of it. You can look at CAD demos all day long but in the end you have to make a few boards with a PCB CAD package in order to tell whether it is good or not.

[gnuarm]

Has there ever been an EEVBlog poll regarding banning someone from the forum?
I'm thinking of starting one.

Maybe you need to take a moment and collect yourself?  This is a public forum.  I can't think of anything that could happen here that would be worth getting at all excited about.

[SilverSolder]

(3) Start the software - can you immediately get a "Hello World" working?  That's called "affordance".  Diptrace has it, so does KiCad, but Diptrace has more of it!
(4) Use the software - does it "feel good" or does it get in the way?  Does it use intuitive keyboard shortcuts? Good use of right-click menus?

IMHO these are not good metrics perse. Some software has a workflow which may seem non-intiutive or even wrong at first sight but can turn out to be very productive once you get the hang of it. You can look at CAD demos all day long but in the end you have to make a few boards with a PCB CAD package in order to tell whether it is good or not.

Thinking about it, the best software really does both?  - very productive, and very nice to use.    Like the difference between two cars - both get you from A to B, but one might be a nicer ride than the other...

[gnuarm]

UIs are like religions.  Different people like different things.  I prefer consistency in interfaces and that means between different apps.  So KiCAD falls short in my measure as it works so differently than other Windows apps, especially if you aren't running Windows!  lol

At the moment I am mostly using KiCAD for viewing schematics and find the counter intuitive pan and zoom to be a major PITA.  Cntl-scroll wheel is zoom.  I don't know about Linux or the Mac OS, but it seems to be nearly universal in every app I use... except for CAD.  Well, cntl-scroll zooms in LTspice, but so does shft-scroll, alt-scroll and just plain scroll.  I can't tell you how often I use cntl-scroll in KiCAD expecting a zoom only to find the page moving. 

A UI works well when a person does not need to think about it.  Back in the days of DOS it was every app for itself.  Under the rule of Windows things should be a bit more consistent.

[SilverSolder]

UIs are like religions.  Different people like different things.  I prefer consistency in interfaces and that means between different apps.  So KiCAD falls short in my measure as it works so differently than other Windows apps, especially if you aren't running Windows!  lol

At the moment I am mostly using KiCAD for viewing schematics and find the counter intuitive pan and zoom to be a major PITA.  Cntl-scroll wheel is zoom.  I don't know about Linux or the Mac OS, but it seems to be nearly universal in every app I use... except for CAD.  Well, cntl-scroll zooms in LTspice, but so does shft-scroll, alt-scroll and just plain scroll.  I can't tell you how often I use cntl-scroll in KiCAD expecting a zoom only to find the page moving. 

A UI works well when a person does not need to think about it.  Back in the days of DOS it was every app for itself.  Under the rule of Windows things should be a bit more consistent.

Yes, the ctrl-scroll to pan is a UI fail, in my personal opinion.   Perhaps there is a setting somewhere to alter the behaviour to more familiar UI paradigms?

LTSpice is also "weird" but not so weird that you can't get used to it.  Ctrl-scroll to pan is one weird too far, like having the clutch and the brake pedals switched in your car...   doable, but you'd have to think about it all the time!

[thinkfat]

The saving grace of LTspice is the space bar. The UI would be completely obnoxious without it.

[nigelwright7557]

I also use ltspice as well as a PCBCAD package.
Gets very confusing with functions keys between the two packages.
 

[nctnico]

(3) Start the software - can you immediately get a "Hello World" working?  That's called "affordance".  Diptrace has it, so does KiCad, but Diptrace has more of it!
(4) Use the software - does it "feel good" or does it get in the way?  Does it use intuitive keyboard shortcuts? Good use of right-click menus?

IMHO these are not good metrics perse. Some software has a workflow which may seem non-intiutive or even wrong at first sight but can turn out to be very productive once you get the hang of it. You can look at CAD demos all day long but in the end you have to make a few boards with a PCB CAD package in order to tell whether it is good or not.

Thinking about it, the best software really does both?  - very productive, and very nice to use.    Like the difference between two cars - both get you from A to B, but one might be a nicer ride than the other...

I'm not sure whether that is possible. A simple example is giving the user an ok/cancel button for every action to make sure whether they really want to do an operation or not. For a novice it can be the saving grace but for a pro it quickly becomes a nuisance.

[Cerebus]

At the moment I am mostly using KiCAD for viewing schematics and find the counter intuitive pan and zoom to be a major PITA.  Cntl-scroll wheel is zoom.  I don't know about Linux or the Mac OS, but it seems to be nearly universal in every app I use... except for CAD.  Well, cntl-scroll zooms in LTspice, but so does shft-scroll, alt-scroll and just plain scroll.  I can't tell you how often I use cntl-scroll in KiCAD expecting a zoom only to find the page moving. 

In the nightlies of 5.99, and in the forthcoming KiCad 6, it finally follows the same selection. drag, scrolling and zooming conventions on macOS with a trackpad as every other Mac application, after you've made a few preferences settings. No longer does it shoot off moving everything on the screen in the wrong way, in the wrong direction, just because you've had the temerity to click somewhere. It takes it from an unusable, annoying pile of crap to a usable product with some quirks (and still quite a lot of bugs). I presume that they've similarly cleaned up the same aspects of the Windows UI.

[SilverSolder]

(3) Start the software - can you immediately get a "Hello World" working?  That's called "affordance".  Diptrace has it, so does KiCad, but Diptrace has more of it!
(4) Use the software - does it "feel good" or does it get in the way?  Does it use intuitive keyboard shortcuts? Good use of right-click menus?

IMHO these are not good metrics perse. Some software has a workflow which may seem non-intiutive or even wrong at first sight but can turn out to be very productive once you get the hang of it. You can look at CAD demos all day long but in the end you have to make a few boards with a PCB CAD package in order to tell whether it is good or not.

Thinking about it, the best software really does both?  - very productive, and very nice to use.    Like the difference between two cars - both get you from A to B, but one might be a nicer ride than the other...

I'm not sure whether that is possible. A simple example is giving the user an ok/cancel button for every action to make sure whether they really want to do an operation or not. For a novice it can be the saving grace but for a pro it quickly becomes a nuisance.

Making that kind of stuff configurable can go a long way - imagine being able to change the hot keys in any application...    E.g. Notepad++ is a good example of how to do it.   If you don't care - fine, don't change anything.   But if you do care...   you can change the hot keys!   

The same applies to "Show confirmation before <operation>" functionality - make it configurable.

[gnuarm]

Thinking about it, the best software really does both?  - very productive, and very nice to use.    Like the difference between two cars - both get you from A to B, but one might be a nicer ride than the other...

I'm not sure whether that is possible. A simple example is giving the user an ok/cancel button for every action to make sure whether they really want to do an operation or not. For a novice it can be the saving grace but for a pro it quickly becomes a nuisance.

I get your point, but this is not a good example.  As long as the undo works, novice and pros alike are safe.  No need for acknowledgement of anything other than permanent actions.

[gnuarm]

At the moment I am mostly using KiCAD for viewing schematics and find the counter intuitive pan and zoom to be a major PITA.  Cntl-scroll wheel is zoom.  I don't know about Linux or the Mac OS, but it seems to be nearly universal in every app I use... except for CAD.  Well, cntl-scroll zooms in LTspice, but so does shft-scroll, alt-scroll and just plain scroll.  I can't tell you how often I use cntl-scroll in KiCAD expecting a zoom only to find the page moving. 

In the nightlies of 5.99, and in the forthcoming KiCad 6, it finally follows the same selection. drag, scrolling and zooming conventions on macOS with a trackpad as every other Mac application, after you've made a few preferences settings. No longer does it shoot off moving everything on the screen in the wrong way, in the wrong direction, just because you've had the temerity to click somewhere. It takes it from an unusable, annoying pile of crap to a usable product with some quirks (and still quite a lot of bugs). I presume that they've similarly cleaned up the same aspects of the Windows UI.

Don't know, but they did deal with the odd origin in the upper left increasing downward coordinate system.  They made it programmable.  Huzzah!

There is also the issue of the origin of zooms.  Some use a fixed origin and others use the mouse position.  LTspice can't decide so they do it differently when editing symbols vs schematic.  Oh, they are very bizarre with symbols using a fixed center which can be OFF THE SCREEN!!!

[JohanH]

"Free" software is a debatable term.

Is free still free if the programmers were paid from grants which comes from our taxes ?
Sounds like we already paid for it whether we use it or not ?

Clearly if no one was paid its can be said to be free.

As far as I am concerned "free" software when talking about software that use GPL (and similar style) licenses, is about the licensing and source code. Free software licenses refer to the freedom to edit and share the source code. That is the true paradigm shift with software with free and open source licenses. It doesn't matter so much for the individual user if s/he can receive and edit the source code, but for the whole "ecosystem" around the software it matters a lot. I don't mind paying something for the software, for services related to the software, or knowing that I indirectly am funding it as long as I know that the source code is free and that there are willing parties (paid or not) investing in development of the software. Tax money is definitely not wasted on large, open source projects. It benefits everyone in society (and that is the point with taxes). The trend is clear. Lots and lots of companies are investing in free and open source software. They have clearly seen the benefit of sharing the work and not having to build everything from scratch, every time. Complaining that companies get out of business, yeah we have heard that one before. What about horse owners when cars become common? Come on. Companies don't have a god given right to eternally get income from some ancient business model (even though some of them try hard to influence law makers to grant them that right). Now I'm not saying everything should be free software. The world isn't black and white. But where it is beneficial, free and open source software will be used. I'm sure there will always be cases where commercial software is needed. But widely used software tend to benefit from becoming free and open source.

BTW, "freeware" is just a trap with more disadvantages than commercial software. E.g. it could be a dead product that doesn't receive updates, so one day you sit there with non-working software and a bunch of designs that can't be ported over to other working software.