topic EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, etc... in EAGLE Forum

EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, etc...

matt.berggren — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 02:43:32 GMT

Hello All!

Today, I'm super excited to announce that EAGLE 8.5.0 is here, just in time torpedo your holiday plans and get you back into the garage, and comes bearing Push & Shove routing, better object locking, better managed library handling, a better library export from your designs, and a LOT more! Full release notes are located in-app and will be up on the site shortly.

...And if you’re excited about this release, please do us a favor and support us! We’ve put an enormous amount of energy into EAGLE in this first year and we would love it if those of you using the freeware version could (where possible) chip in to help us make EAGLE the best PCB software on-market.

That said, here’s some highlights of 8.5 (exit hand-wavy):

Routing

Long overdue, EAGLE 8.5.0 now introduces a new Push Obstacles mode (push & shove) for PCB routing. This feature will push existing routes out of the way to make room for tracks, whether you’re sneaking in-between traces, need to do some quick cleanup (including tightening up the spacing between components), or just need room to drop a via for fanout to a polygon.

Finally, we’ve tightened up the avoid obstacles algorithm to support “just fit” cases where the clearances are just enough to sneak thru.

Lock Objects Improvements

EAGLE 8.5.0 also includes improvements to locking & now support locking wires, polygons, vias & holes. This should make life *much* easier with prerouted sections you dont want to accidentally rip up (feedlines, critical signals, etc), or with those mounting holes that should *never* be moved. Other objects like fiducials, testpoints, etc can also be locked giving you confidence your jigs, programmers, etc will all align to the board as expected!

Library Export ULP

A new exp-lbrs.ulp has been added to significantly improve library export and better handle things like managed libraries. The UI is much cleaner, easier to use and the experience should be far better than the previous exp-lbrs.ulp.

ULPs & SCR more generally

As long-time EAGLE users know, ULPs (scripts) are first-class citizens in the tools. This has enabled EAGLE to remain relatively light on the UI/UX-side (in terms of buttons and dialogs) without compromising much of what you can do. However for far TOO long, it’s been difficult to know what a specific ULP or SCR file *does* without first opening it. Well no more!

In EAGLE 8.5, the ULP and SCR options support descriptions which makes locating and using ULPs far easier to manage.

Managed Libraries

We’ve continued our work on Managed Libraries including adding the much-requested ability to open a managed library from the Control Panel. We’ve also ensured that backups of Managed Libraries are made before downloading new versions from the Library Manager and that a backup of the local draft of a Managed Library is made whenever creating a new server version or reverting to server version.

Outro

As we close the first year of *Autodesk* EAGLE, we can honestly say that this has been one heck of ride. The passion and enthusiasm the development team has for EAGLE & its community is enormous and the desire to enable all of YOU to do more is central to what drives this team. We hope our efforts have made you all more productive, made EAGLE more enjoyable, and most importantly, enabled you to make all manner of new and interesting things. We will continue our effort into the new year and if we haven’t said it lately, thank you!

Best regards & happy holidays!

Matt Berggren

Director - Autodesk EAGLE, Tinkercad, Fusion

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:12:38 GMT

funny note: "ANTs" usually move around a lot on their own will, but now you locked them!

Let's see if PETA interferes...

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 11:04:42 GMT

Which button is assigned to place a straight-thru via?
I have to navigate the menus so select some layer.
I just want to end routing by placing the track in a via.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

edwin.robledo — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 15:13:54 GMT

Hi ADresden,

I hope all is well, and your continued participation on the forum is greatly appreciated. Just wanted to inform you that by pressing the space bar will place a via at the end of your trace. Use the left mouse button to place the via and continue routing or double click to end. The via length will be determined by the DRC/Layer setup you have. If you have Blind or Buried vias setup, then use the middle mouse button to determine via length.

If you only wish to place a via at an arbitrary position of the board, then use the VIA command to place it. Use the NAME command to assign a signal name.

I hope this helps.

Please 'accept as solution' if my reply resolves your issue.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

isaac.dent0 — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:11:07 GMT

Wow, what an amazing release. I have longed for push / nudge functionality and never thought I'd see the day that it would come! Great work to everyone on your team for making Eagle a modern, powerful ECAD workstation. You are constantly surprising us, and improving our workflow.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 16:12:54 GMT

Hi Matt,

Congratulations, it's an impressive feature, and over the last year the various improvements have made me feel quite positive about Eagle's direction.

Anyway, I notice that push obstacles mode doesn't work when routing with any of the "curvy" wire bend styles. Is this planned?

Thanks.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

edwin.robledo — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 17:47:28 GMT

Hi Justin,

Thanks for posting on the forum, greatly appreciate. Push&Shove is restricted by Locked Traces and by DRC violations. So if the trace your are referring to has a DRC violation of sort, EAGLE will not have any effect on it. Use DRC/Selection to find out the specific violation in the area in question.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Edwin

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

jorge_garcia — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 17:50:04 GMT

Hi @Anonymous,

You are very observant. This first pass of the push and shove feature doesn't support curvy wire bend styles but that is planned.

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

Best Regards,

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 23:02:24 GMT

I spent about 15 hours this week push&shove-ing things in the schematics, it would be nice if it were just 5 😉

Highlighting of wires of a component that I pick up does not work. It would speed up my workflow a lot. Different intensity, even colors are acceptable.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 23:06:16 GMT

OK, SPACEBAR, got it!

Can you make double-tap spacebar to place via and end it?

I have severe, painful muscle damage over my right shoulder blade from the use of computer mouse. Double clicking in addition to space bar use is redundant and unergonomic.

Is double-tap spacebar possible?

Thanks.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

rachaelATWH4 — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 23:21:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Is double-tap spacebar possible?

For once I think I actually agree with you. Double press on the space bar to place a via at the current location would be much faster.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 23:23:45 GMT

Sixth, seventh or eighth time you agree with me. We discuss a lot.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

rachaelATWH4 — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 23:34:41 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Sixth, seventh or eighth time you agree with me. We discuss a lot.

You are keeping count?! 😄

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

matt.berggren — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 03:00:38 GMT

Thanks for the recommendation on the double tap. I’m generally inclined to agree however I think we probably need to support both modes. Reason being, at home I have an old school mechanical keyboard which is LOUD. (As do a lot of gamers and other hipster types.) Two rapid hits of the space bar would probably bring my neighbor over and I doubt the excuse “I’m just fanning out my power nets” would keep him happy.

Still, I like the idea and see the power of it on my laptop. Question though: should it be spacebar? What if it was just double click with the mouse? And spacebar was for thru hole vias? I can imagine fanout being super fast if all you did was draw a track stub and double click to terminate it with PTH via. Completely bypassing the space bar.

Love to get your input!

Best regards,

Matt

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:25:29 GMT

I'm afraid I have found a little bug of some sort. When I apply Tools/Renumber parts option to my design in Schematic view, the PCB (already routed) suddenly displays countless DRC violations.

That being said, I love the push&shove feature, just in time for Christmas 😉 This year's updates hava improved my workflow immensely.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:01:25 GMT

Yes, thank me on the double tap.
Yes, I also want botth odes supported.
Just load a different UI, like discussed somewhere else.

I only do thru hole vias, double space is acceptable.

The behaviour or anything is hardly configurable in Eagle, and we can't have different sets. Or even the old icon sets.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:02:23 GMT

It's just the friendship I can't forget.

Re: EAGLE 8.5.0 has gone live! -- push and shove, locked objects, libs, ULPs, et

rachaelATWH4 — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:11:22 GMT

Hi Matt,

I'd say double tap space is the right choice. Double clicking the mouse should just end the trace as it does now?

Rather than limiting it to just through vias, it should put in whatever via type is currently selected. If it insisted on through vias that might not be much help when manually fanning out a BGA.

Best Regards,

Rachael