Hello (EAGLE) World!
Today we’re proud to announce the release of Autodesk EAGLE version 9.1 and if you thought EAGLE 9.0 already had its share of amazing stuff - e.g. the Design Manager, or the Quick Route tools, or Quick Connect’s pin-breakout tools - you’re in a for a treat! This is far from the sorts of lame “Service Packs” that you get to keep you paying maintenance. No, this release is awesome! And at the risk of sounding hand-wavy, is guaranteed to make you more productive!
Ok, now on to the show... (look inside of the app for full release notes, there is a LOT more in there!!!)
Move Command Preserves Angles & Supports 45/90 Drag!
Yes it’s true, after a looooong wait on the part of our loyal users (ie. You!) the MOVE command in EAGLE now supports 3 new modes, including:
- Preserve Angles mode - which not only preserves 45/90 degree connections, but also any other attached angles you might be using (single & multiple tracks, parts, vias, etc!)
- Free Mode - which works like it used to and basically just keeps the tracks connected at all costs (i.e. always shortest path)
- Disconnect Mode - which enables you to disconnect components or vias from connected tracks and move them around without the tracks rubber-banding to them (airwires will remain but the parts can move freely)
Have a look at the following video for more details and tell us what you think!
Single-Click Schematic Wiring
Ok, you probably think that title is a bit hyperbolic but it’s really not! This version of EAGLE introduces the option to simply specify a name then click on a pin and have the Wire, Name and Label all added. It likewise includes an option to increment the Name automatically making it SUPER easy to break out multiple pins in a group like D0-D7.
Here’s the best part, when you’re in that mode, you can just bounce around from pin to pin in your schematic and do things like click...click...click to add all of your SPI lines to MOSI or MISO or SCLK. Then change the name (as you’ll see in the video, you can just type a new name in the command line and hit Enter) and do the same thing again for another group of similarly-named signals.
Check out the video below and tell us what you think! This could in fact be one of the biggest changes in how schematics are done in a loooong time, you decide.
Polygonize: Create Polygons from Closed Paths / Paths from Polygons
This next one is simply all-too-obvious and like the previous two, is a little embarrassing when we think of how long, virtually all of you have been manually redrawing the same boundary, time and time again in virtually every ECAD tool, to go from creating a board shape, to flooding a layer like top or bottom with copper. Well no more!
Today we introduce the ability to simply right click on any closed boundary and turn a collection of lines and arcs into a polygon. And where your board shape has typically been defined on the Dimension layer (right?!) you can now select the board shape, create a polygon and then change the polygon layer to a copper layer like top or bottom (you long-time users will know that you couldn’t move drawing layer objects to signal layers in the past but this is now possible).
So go ahead and draw some wild board shapes and start flooding them with copper! (Just try and be nice, we just released it and I know how creative some of you can be...As always feedback is welcome! 😉
You can also now select a polygon and create an outline from it. So if you need an outline from a polygon object, again, right click the polygon and you’ll see the option in the Right Mouse context menu.
For both, checkout the video below!
Export Mask / Silkscreen Colors to Fusion 360
This one has been on the list of things to do for a long time and we’re excited to say we are now passing the PCB silkscreen, soldermask and “copper” color from the Manufacturing Preview dialog (the flyout on the right side of the main PCB workspace) to Fusion 360. What’s more, this preview info is now stored in the PCB’s XML file so the next time you open your PCB, you’ll see the same color information on a push to Fusion!
Have a look at the video below and let us know what you think!
UI Changes Abound!
Ok, I would be remiss if I didnt mention the new icons and the new UI improvements across EAGLE. We have been working slowly but surely thru changes in the user-interface and updating EAGLE to feel cleaner and more modern. The new icons are only a small fraction of the overall changes you’ll notice and we are committed to making sure that EAGLE not only performs well, but also looks awesome!
In addition to a different look with the icons, we have done a little reordering, putting the highest priority items along the top of the main toolbar to the left of the workspace. We likewise consolidated some of the lesser-used stuff either along the bottom of the main toolbar or into lists of items in the sub-command toolbars that pop up when you’re in a command (e.g. Route toolbar).
Some of you may also notice a change in the default layer colors the next time you go to create a schematic or board. These are subtle (still the red and blue for top and bottom of your PCB) but a little softer and less...well...dark. We wanted something more akin to Sublime, than say, VIM...But without being too clever about it. After all, we know this is CAD and the strain on your eyes is very real. We wanted to reduce this whilst modernizing the tools a bit more.
Home tab & the Revamp of the Control Panel
Lastly, dont miss the Home tab along the top of the updated Control Panel. This little gem will keep you up to date with Webinars, new videos and new learning content and provides us a way to message things like new libraries and other content to you without spamming your inbox! (Many of you asked things like “where is the recording of the last webinar?” or “how can I find videos about xyz?” and this is the sort of content we intend to share here.)
Note: Something to be aware of: Examples in the Control Panel (the stuff we supply) are now read-only and can be saved elsewhere but the canonical version will always remain in the EAGLE installation directory as a read only file. When you open it, it creates a temporary copy and requires you to save it.
This was designed deliberately to both a) ensure there is always a golden example file you can relate back to, and b) make a clean separation between your data (user data) and the things we ship with EAGLE.
This latter point is important because it sets us up to do in-place installations later that don’t overwrite your user-generated content and which dont require you to do side by side installs all the time! (Stay tuned!)
When you go to Options->Directories now under the Control Panel you’ll also see options to disable the Examples, in the event you never use them! (Better if you tell us what content *would* be more useful and we simply built that!)
Overall, have a look at the new look & feel and let us know what you think!
Outro
As always, a huge thanks to the EAGLE development team here at Autodesk. They do all the hard work and deserve all of the credit. And of course a huge thanks to you, the users! Please enjoy the new features and this summer, remember: when the screen glare gets to be too much, come back inside and design something awesome! (Or just type SNAKE at the command line in PCB and wait for Westworld to start up again! 🙂
Best regards,
Matt Berggren
Director - Autodesk EAGLE
P.S. Pro-tip: Spacebar changes layers, vias give you points. And 4-layer boards make it more interesting. 🙂
