Community
Hi All!
This week we’re excited to announce the release of EAGLE version 8.2! I’d like to take a moment to share just some of what’s included in this release both in terms of new features as well as some crucial fixes.
Design Blocks
Firstly, we’ve added support for editing Design Blocks (!) along with the ability to create new Design Blocks from the Control Panel.
To edit a Design Block, simply right click the block in the Control Panel and select Open. This will launch the Modify Design Block dialog. Click the Edit button to open the Design Block (Sch and/or PCB) in the EAGLE workspace and edit your DBL file(s). This is a special editing mode and will open the DBL schematic and corresponding PCB DBL (if included) where appropriate.
Add, modify & remove items from your Design Block(s) and save the DBL files (Ctrl+S / Cmd+S). Note that the CAM Processor and Autorouter are not present in Design Block editing mode.
We’ve also made a small but substantial change to Design Block behavior. Now when you add a Design Block to either Schematic or PCB, you’ll be prompted with a cursor for where you wish to place the DBL data. This was an important addition that makes fine tuning DBL placement easy. For perhaps obvious reasons, this only works with DBLs created using a single-sheet schematic.
Managed Libraries
This one is a big step on a much longer road toward better component management and smart, version-controlled components in EAGLE (i.e. a path to EAGLE knowing the version of parts in a design and being able to prompt an update when parts are out of date). Having that in mind, here’s the current state as of 8.2.0:
Managed Libraries (‘version 1.0’) begin with “syndicated” content, like Adafruit’s, SparkFun’s, or SeeedStudio’s git-based libraries, as well as EAGLE’s own Autodesk-supplied libraries. When a library is downloaded from the Library server (all of these work offline today) they’ll now contain reference to the specific version of the original library at the time of download. Furthermore, when using a part in your design, that part will now also inherit the version information as a read-only attribute. When a library changes it’s now possible to pull the latest version of the lib from the content server and when updating a design from library, the parts with old versions can also be updated to reflect the latest versions.
The aim here is more sophisticated than it may seem but for starters, we’d sought to syndicate some of the great community / partner library content (and later design-content) to users, directly within the application. However there’s always been the nagging issue of both installing new libraries (teaching new users to use the Ctrl panel) and “how do I know when it’s been updated?”. The aim of this system is to overcome that and this is only the beginning. (After all, Adafruit, Seeed, Sparkfun, or us for that matter, don’t want you using an outdated libraries or designs if by the off-chance we find an issue with a part.)
What’s more, this content delivery pipeline allows us to update parts in-between software release cycles which, though they’re getting shorter (the release cycles, not the parts 🙂 could leave you waiting weeks or even months for a fix to a syndicated part.
What’s key to understanding this system is that today you are physically downloading the library from the server. And EAGLE’s libraries are still included in the build when the product ships. Thus you can work offline, sans connection. We will continue to operate this (local) cached-library concept as it makes the most sense for reliable syndication of data and offline editing.
That being said, not all content syndicators may be ok with this model (especially those companies who profit by selling parts or subscriptions to parts) so expect there will be a mix of some offline, cached libs and some online libraries when all is said and done. The parts will always be inside of your design and stored within the design files, regardless if they come from an online or offline source.
What’s more, this doesn’t change anything about *your* libraries..Certainly not unless you decide at some point to share your content with the community. We don’t want to own your content. We rather, wanted to build a system to enable the community to share content directly and not struggle with updates / notifications if and when that content changes. This is the beginning of that process, so bare with us while we crack the code on this little gem! And please provide your feedback!
Using Managed Libraries (Short-short Version 🙂
Managed libraries are used by selecting the Libraries->Manage Libraries menu command or by selecting the Manage Libraries button from within the Add dialog. From the Manage Libraries dialog you’ll see both the current libraries In Use as well as Available libraries. Selecting the Available tab will give you a list of all available libraries and you can selectively Use whatever libraries you’d like.
All Managed Libraries will be downloaded upon adding and located in the Managed Libraries folder found under the Control Panel. They're being stored in the user’s application data directory (e.g. ~/Library/Application Support/eagle on Mac) if you want to access the files directly.
Routing
A number of improvements this time around in the routing department including a better indication when you start a route with a DRC violation, regardless of whether Walkaround Obstacles mode is enabled or not. When a route begins with a violation, a circle with a slash thru it will appear alongside the cursor. The route command will then automatically switch from Walkaround to Ignore Obstacles, making it possible to continue the route, despite the violation (DRC should catch these violations whether you ignore them or not). It will switch back to Walkaround Obstacles when that route is completed.
Loop Removal has also been improved. Now when you create a redundant connection, the loop will vanish *prior* to clicking to confirm the connection, giving you a clear indication that of what the interactive router will do prior to committing the segment.
Improved PCB Layer Dialog / Layer Sets
We’ve gone ahead and made Layer Sets more obvious by improving the Layers dialog and adding both a list of existing layer sets and the ability to Add/Remove layer sets.
For those that dont know, Layer Sets can be enabled either thru this dialog (New) or by clicking and holding (long-click) on the Layers button in the main Toolbar. A right-click of this button will do the same and makes switching between layers needed for placement, routing, aligning silkscreen, etc. super easy! (See the inset image)
A Few Others
Finally, a few small items including support for Ctrl/Cmd+A for Select All. Likewise, Ctrl/Cmd+C & Ctrl/Cmd+V for copy and paste respectively. How about that for long overdue? 🙂
We’d also cleaned up some of the PCB default values including default track widths, drill sizes, clearance values, grids, etc.
In all, a lot of new and updated capability for a “dot-two” (i.e. 8.2.0) release! And we’re not stopping there! We’re working hard to consistently improve the tools whilst maintaining that which makes EAGLE so unique. Please let us know how we’re doing and please provide us with feedback, suggestions, complaints, etc. We’re all ears!
Best regards,
Matt - Autodesk.
Director of Fusion Electronics
EAGLE
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