topic Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements! in EAGLE Forum

EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

matt.berggren — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 21:56:58 GMT

Hi Everyone!

We’re super excited to announce the latest release of EAGLE, version 9.2, now avail for download in-app via the Home page (Window->Control Panel->Home tab)! Not having a major release in August gave us a chance to complete some longer term projects and this release is a monster! (Surely enough in there to be considered a “major” release by the old standard, now lands as a point-release in this version!)

On with the show!

If you follow my twitter (@technolomaniac) you would invariably have seen SOME of this but I promise there’s more than I shared online so please checkout the full extent of the amazing stuff this team has pulled off below. Tl;dr?

Single-click fanout all of your GND / PWR nets, even comps w/ Quickroute Fanout
Digital & Mixed-Mode Simulation (Analog & Digital)!
Super fast component creation with pin & pad arrays
STEP Export
Wire Ends automatically trimmed to pins of parts dropped in series (no overlap)
New Paint Roller (a’la Format Painter) enables copying properties between objects
New Layer Stackup dialog makes multi-layer boards super easy
New Pattern command enables quick and easy linear and circular arrays
SMASH gone, comps come in “Smashed” by default / text movable from the start
CAM dialog can be resized / numerous improvements to the CAM workflow!

Quickroute Fanout

Knowing most of you use polygons on either top and/or bottom for those monster nets like GND or power and thus spend a fair bit of your time doing the dance: draw a track, drop a via...draw a track, drop a via...draw a track, drop a via…GOTO 10 we’ve added a new Quickroute->Fanout tool automating those connections.

Before:

After Quickroute Fanout:

Select the new Fanout icon in the main toolbar and choose from several directional options (In, Out, or staggered In & Out) and pick either a component or a signal to fanout. Your eagle life has never been easier!

Digital / Mixed-Mode Simulation

Next up is a MONSTER and just in time for that second or third year Circuit Analysis course you’ve been sweating thru. In this release we’ve introduced both Digital and Mixed Mode simulation to the already powerful analog, SPICE-based simulation we’d added earlier in the year. It’s now possible to use digital sim models (XSPICE) along with your analog components (Berkeley SPICE w/ ngspice extensions) and even generate digital sources using simple Time/Value pairs or CSV file input, as an easy way to leverage digital events in the broader SPICE universe.

Mix and match analog and digital signals with the new AtoD bridge which handles the complexity necessary when converting a signal in one “format”, to something suitable in the other context. With new examples to support you, new models and a new, expanded SPICE library, you will have more than enough to make waves (pun fully intended) whether in the lab, the garage or the classroom.

Pin & SMD Array

The next item will prove a huge time saver when building parts. Whether you need a group of similarly named or numbered pins or pads, the new Pin Array and SMD array tools will make short work of creating even complex parts. Select the Pin or SMD command and the array options will appear in the context toolbar up top.

Paint Roller

If you’ve used EAGLE for any length of time, you’ve probably discovered the Change command, which is super useful when changing a single property of multiple objects, whether iteratively or as a group edit. However what happens when you want to change 3 or 4 or 5 properties of those same objects? This is where the Paint Roller comes into play.

Similar in some ways to Format Painter in MS Office or Illustrator, first select the Paint Roller, then select an object to copy properties from. Next, select the objects you want to pass those properties to. You can do this iteratively (click...click...click) for as many objects as you’d like and this makes things like text formatting, via size / shape, and even simple X or Y alignment super fast. What’s more, you can do all of these changes in a single step!

Wires Snipped To Component-Pins Dropped Mid-Wire

If you’ve built more than a handful of schematics, you’ve almost invariably found yourself rewiring a schematic around the occasional part. Whether you realized you forgot the current limiting resistors for your LED or you just had to drop a decoupling capacitor between your source voltage and GND. In either circumstance, the need to drop a component in series and rewire the net to the appropriate pins has long been a dance between the Split command, the Move command, the Delete command and more. Well, no more!

In EAGLE 9.2, if you drop a part in the middle of a wire (ie. in series) wires will automatically snap to the ends of those part pins, effectively trimming the wires to fit! So now whether you drop all of your parts and then wire your design or you do it piecemeal, a few parts at a time, you have the flexibility to easily add that essential component without an orchestra of rework to follow.

New Layer Stackup Dialog

If you can read this: [2:(1+(2*3)+(14*15)+16):15] ...Bletchley Park called, they're wondering if you're coming to work today! If you have no idea what that is, it’s in fact the way that layers had been added to EAGLE prior to version 9.2...But not anymore!

The current release now moves away from this VI-enthusiast’s encoding to instead use a much simpler, more direct method of editing layers in the Layers tab of the DRC dialog. However for those of you who prefer to add layers via script or the command line, the old approach still works...You can still enter [2:(1+(2*3)+(14*15)+16):15] in the Layer String field anytime you’re feeling too productive. 🙂

Pattern Command

We’ve gone ahead and added the first steps in building a more comprehensive Pattern command. This command will allow you to select an object and create either a linear or circular array of similar objects. Very cool for things like coaxial-style via stitching alongside feedlines or even quick and dirty collections of LEDs & current limiting resistors!

Bye Bye SMASH

This release heralds the end of the SMASHED property for component text. You can restore positions of text, but the text of components can now be moved without needing to perform a SMASH on the component first. All of your legacy designs will load with the text SMASH’ed and all new component placements will have the text in a ready-to-move state.

This was overwhelmingly the state of customer designs when released and thus we’ve made this the default. If you want to restore the text to the library position, right click an part and select Restore Position. (Special thanks to NYC Resistor for hosting me at an EAGLE workshop where I was reminded why we needed to change this. This and the SMD / Pin array both came from teaching real people how to build things with EAGLE and we’ve got LOT more of that planned!)

STEP Export!

Ok, last for this post (and please review the full release notes for WAY more stuff) we’ve added STEP AP214 export from the File->Export Menu. Of course the workflow is far more monolithic than using the EAGLE<>Fusion workflow (eg constraints aren’t preserved in other mechanical environments like they would be in Fusion using the ECAD<>MCAD workflow, which is timeline sensitive) but if you want to take those same files to Inventor, this is means to do it!

Outro

Ok, final word: thank you for being an amazing group of incredible users! Let me close in asking that if you can support the product, please do! We’ve worked super hard to get the product to a level that doesn't require you make a leap to the next highest tier of tool when it’s time to do production hardware. That being said, that takes significant investment...And whether you were contributing to KiCAD or paying for EAGLE, it would be cool if you can support the tools you use every day! I can promise we are not going to relent in our pace of development but we could certainly use your help demonstrating that this is a commercial success and worthy of even more resources! Thank you!

Thanks for sticking it out with us and welcome back to the students and professors that use EAGLE every day! Thank you!

Best regards,

Matt Berggren

Director - Autodesk EAGLE

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

engineeringNCMXB — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:22:03 GMT

These are some excellent improvements that I started using within minutes of install.

The update in the Layers dialog is MUCH appreciated - the setup syntax never stuck in my brain because I don't use it enough. Now, it is intuitive and requires no space in my brain to memorize anything. The problem....it is crashing my machine.

The 'Auto Trim' when I drop a part on a wire......AWESOME! Love that....it saves mouse clicks and anything that saves mouse clicks is good in my world.

The ARRAY family of functions is a giant leap forward for creating parts. Next up, PARAMETRIC polygons, lines, circles!!

Paintroller.....another mouse click saver that I started using within a minute.
I will not miss SMASH for even a milli-second.

Can't wait to test drive the other new features.

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

engineeringNCMXB — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 01:21:28 GMT

FYI: After re-starting Eagle - I used the new layers dialog to make a number of changes and it did not crash again.

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

matt.berggren — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 03:01:30 GMT

Awesome! Please let us know if you see it again and thanks for trying it out! We’re planning our usual 7-10 day turnaround for a bugfix release (after a “feature release”) so anything you hit, let us know and we’ll do our best to get it into that first batch of fixes! Bound to be something or QA team or development missed in the final preparations.

Best regards,

Matt

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

professzore — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 12:19:34 GMT

Hi,

Pattern on BRD doesn't work in any mean.
Error:

Can't backannotate this operation.
Please do this in the schematic!

I am a bit confused, and continued using Jorge's nice Component-Array.ulp sketch.

Any uprgade? Or did I simply miss something?

Thanks,

Tamás

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

engineeringNCMXB — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 17:06:38 GMT

Fusion 360 push/pull is working again! The Boards are rendered with copper/masks/pads, etc.
I did not see that called out in the 'fixes' - but that is a big fix for me. F360 also got some patches - perhaps the fix was on their end.

I made a new part yesterday and it was MUCH quicker! The ARRAY feature is a very welcome addition.

Glad to see it....

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:53:03 GMT

Thank you for your awesome job guys! By watching through the videos there are many things what I have wished to work in the new way many times.

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

ESCAPEKIT — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 21:00:58 GMT

I am REALLY happy!
Thanks, I was not sure if Autodesk and the new payment system was going to be good for Eagle, but it is proving to be great. The pace of improvement seems to be great and in the right direction. All the annoying things about Eagle are being addressed.
Congratulations! Great Job!
Can't wait to see what will come next!

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 18:54:58 GMT

Is there any chance of adding the right click context menu for 'move group' back into eagle 9.2? I really like to group and move and this is broken in eagle 9.2 on Windows 7.

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

jorge_garcia — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 18:49:19 GMT

Hi @Anonymous,

I hope you're doing well. The Move:GROUP option is still there, keep in mind that in order for it to show up you have to have the MOVE command active. So if you form a group > Click the Move icon and then right click on the group you'll see the option Group:Move there.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 12:36:01 GMT

I haven't used Eagle in earnest since V8.7 and have found that routing and auto-routing is not as good as it was. In fact it is possible to drag a net away from a pad hot-point. I tried it with V9.1 and the net rubber-bands from the hot-point. Interestingly error checking doesn't show any inconsistencies even though the net is not visually connected.

I do like the wire trimming to the adjacent pin hot-point, earlier version it was hit and miss only error checking to find misaligned nets and pins.

Furthermore, is there a quick way to un-route a board as deleting on track at a time is tedious?

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

rachaelATWH4 — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:47:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I haven't used Eagle in earnest since V8.7 and have found that routing and auto-routing is not as good as it was. In fact it is possible to drag a net away from a pad hot-point. I tried it with V9.1 and the net rubber-bands from the hot-point. Interestingly error checking doesn't show any inconsistencies even though the net is not visually connected.

There is a known bug along these lines still present in 9.2.2 but it's not a regular occurrence and I believe @jorge_garcia said it will be fixed in 9.3 which should be coming soon. It could also be that you have the move command in the 'Disconnect' mode, which is a new mode introduced in 9.1, so check that as move has three operating modes now which are selectable by toolbar buttons when the move command is active. But, if you are testing with 9.1 then you're missing a lot of fixes which were released since then. I'd also recommend trying 9.2.2 to see if any issues you are seeing are fixed already.

I'd actually say that manual routing in 9.2.2 is massively more advanced than in 8.7.1. The main reason for this is the updated move tool which has a new preserve angle mode. Changing routing, moving component with connections, tidying up after a little push & shove, are all much faster and last time I reverted to 8.7.1 to do some testing I was amazed how much slower it was now I have fully adapted to using the newer tools.

@Anonymous wrote:

Furthermore, is there a quick way to un-route a board as deleting on track at a time is tedious?

Yes there is!

RIP *;

Best Regards,

Rachael

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:15:30 GMT

Hi I have 9.3 and it is still possible drag tracks off hot points and also break multipoint tracks.

Re: EAGLE 9.2 has arrived and is loaded with productivity enhancements!

rachaelATWH4 — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:24:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Hi I have 9.3 and it is still possible drag tracks off hot points and also break multipoint tracks.

Since upgrading the 9.3 the issue I had previously seen with this in 9.2.2 appears to have gone. Are you sure you are in the correct MOVE mode, either 'preserve angles' or 'free' and not in the 'disconnect' mode?

Best Regards,

Rachael