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
