Feature Request: Via Selection

[Anonymous]

One of the recent versions made it extremely had to click on vias to move them. When I click on a via, it selects the associated copper trace 80% of the time (which is what I intend to do 5% of the time) and the only way I can find to select the via is perfectly click on the dead center of the via and try several times until it works right.

I would request one of the following:

- Right click enabled selection so that I can cycle between the trace and the via; or

- Default to selecting the via when near one, which I am pretty sure what most people intend (and moving off the via to select a trace is much easier to do than perfectly click on the center of a via to *not* select a trace).

- Have an option in the move tool (in the area for keep angle, disconnect, etc) to only move vias? Or something?

Just some reasonably quick way to do this would be quite nice, I've been hitting this issue frequently in normal usage.

[didrik.madheden]

As a long-time user of an oldschool version of Eagle, I've faced the same issue. However, what I've found is that often, the route tool with loop remove activated, and walkaround obstacles or push obstacles will do the same action I intended to do quicker. Instead of fine adjusting an existing via, which will almost certainly require adjusting some of the traces connected to it anyway, make a new trace and let the old trace and via get removed automatically.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @Anonymous,

I hope you're doing well. That doesn't sound right, the right-click selection should be in play allowing you select the via. From your description it sounds like your are not seeing this.

Here's the procedure that works for me:
1) Left click near the center of the via
2) EAGLE will see that the selection is ambiguous, the cursor will change to look like the 4 directions on the map.
3) Right-click to cycle through the nearby items
4) Once the via is highlighted, left click it to confirm the selection

Does that not work in your case?

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

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Unless there is a new version since 9.2.2 this is definitely not what I see.

If I click near the via, it immediately switches to move mode. If I start moving the mouse, either the trace or the via immediately move. I have the same outcome on both Windows 10 and Linux.

If I am *exactly* on the crosshair that a via is on it selects and immediately starts moving the via. If I'm only close, it always selects the trace connected to the via. This is for a via that is assigned to a net and has traces on the top and bottom of the board, if I place a via with no net assignment it does bring up the right click selection process.

Hopefully this helps you to reproduce the scenario! Unassigned vias do bring up right clicking selection, vias on nets connected to traces do not.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @Anonymous,

Hmmm, could you post a screenshot of your Options > Set > Misc tab screen I want to see what options you have checked and unchecked.

If you can post a picture of the via you are trying to grab that may provide some additional clues.

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

Best Regards,

[didrik.madheden]

@jorge_garcia Despite suggesting using the route tool as a workaround above, I can confirm that something has definitely changed about the move tool, where it's much less likely than before to ask the user to disambiguate between segments.

When sitting down and trying to systematize the behavior, I've found that the only place you can click to consistently move the via is the inner drill (transparent/black) circle of the via. In my experiments, clicking anywhere in the green ring of the via, would always select one or the other of traces. That is perhaps the most confusing part in this, because the green part is undoubtedly part of the via. Clicking anywhere in the solid red or solid blue trace portion would consistently select the top or bottom trace. There is a small sweet spot region (two opposite quarter circle arcs?) in the red/blue overlap that would also consistently select the via itself. I've tried to mark this area in the attached image.

Never once could I get the move tool to ask me to disambiguate in the attached example. I could however get the info tool to do so, so clearly different tools are using different rules for which region is selected.

[didrik.madheden]

Here's my misc tab for reference.

[Anonymous]

Here are the screenshots. The latter shows my attempt to click near but not exactly on the dead center of the via, which immediately allowed me to move the trace rather than asking for me to select which one to move. I've tried right clicking a lot previously and it just rotates the trace.

For what it's worth, I only finally posted about this because a colleague came to me complaining about it and had been frustrated with the same thing (on two different computers running two different OS's). I'm pretty sure this is not a unique issue to my configuration. One of my computers is new as of November so Eagle was even freshly installed about two months ago.

[rachaelATWH4]

Try turning off the “Group command default on” option. That should make things better as that option messes with the way things are selected in a generally annoying way. 

Best Regards,

Rachael

[didrik.madheden]

@rachaelATWH4 I've been having that option disabled as per a previous question. All it does is to prevent the group tool from being selected as a default to in certain situations, such as when pressing the esc key. While it's a useful option to disable (at least for my workflow) I can pretty confidently say that it's completely unrelated to the issue in this discussion.

[rachaelATWH4]

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@didrik.madheden wrote:

I can pretty confidently say that it's completely unrelated to the issue in this discussion.

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Oh really? 

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@didrik.madheden wrote:

All it does is to prevent the group tool from being selected as a default to in certain situations, such as when pressing the esc key.

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Actually the name of the mode is a little misleading as it does do a lot more than that, it affects the way the selection mechanism determines what is selected. You can see for yourself, try setting that on/off and choose different select factor and catch factor settings, what is selected and the point at which it is selected changes significantly. I just tested this out to check that nothing had changed in this latest release that I hadn't noticed and it behaved as I expected so I can pretty confidently say this is completely related to this discussion 

Best Regards,

Rachael

[rachaelATWH4]

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@Anonymous wrote:

One of the recent versions made it extremely hard to click on vias to move them. When I click on a via, it selects the associated copper trace 80% of the time (which is what I intend to do 5% of the time) and the only way I can find to select the via is perfectly click on the dead center of the via and try several times until it works right.

I just did a quick test between 8.7.1 and 9.2.2 and you are right there is a difference. With the move tool enabled and the mode set to free rather than preserve angles I would expect the action of clicking anywhere on a via and moving it to be the same in both. In 8.7.1 if I click anywhere on the via then only the via will select and the trace running into the via will change angle to follow the via but not actually move itself. In 9.2.2, if I select the dead centre of the via it does the same but if I select anywhere else in the via it does also select that trace and move it too causing the subsequently connecting segment to be the one which changes angle to maintain connectivity. So there is a change to the way things select but if you have the preserve angles mode turned on it'll likely always give predictable and correct results. I can see it being a bit frustrating if you are in free mode though.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[didrik.madheden]

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@rachaelATWH4 wrote:

Actually the name of the mode is a little misleading as it does do a lot more than that, it affects the way the selection mechanism determines what is selected. You can see for yourself, try setting that on/off and choose different select factor and catch factor settings, what is selected and the point at which it is selected changes significantly. I just tested this out to check that nothing had changed in this latest release that I hadn't noticed and it behaved as I expected so I can pretty confidently say this is completely related to this discussion 

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Interesting. If you can give me a reproducible test case where the setting make a difference, I'll reconsider my statement. For example: When catch factor is set to x and select factor is set to y, and group command default on is checked, region z of the trace selects the via. When catch factor and select factor are set to the same values as before, and group command default on is unchecked, the same region z selects the top layer trace.

[rachaelATWH4]

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@didrik.madheden wrote:

Interesting. If you can give me a reproducible test case where the setting make a difference, I'll reconsider my statement. 

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I didn't say it was the root cause, just that it's related. It DOES have an effect on what items are seen for selection so MAY improve (or not) the situation (probably not based on subsequent testing).

I'm not going to give you specific cases to show you there is more to that setting than it's name implies. You can easily test it for yourself if you don't believe me, or not, it's up to you, I really don't care either way.

My previous post was a little tongue in cheek because your earlier reply to me was unnecessary, if you didn't think it was relevant then just ignore it, don't make an issue out of it and try to get one over on me.

If you read my subsequent post you'd see I did further experimentation and determined there is a difference between 8.7.1 and 9.2.2 specifically with via selection, likely related to the changes in the MOVE command which came in 9.1.0. 

Regards,

Rachael

[didrik.madheden]

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@rachaelATWH4 wrote:

I didn't say it was the root cause, just that it's related. It DOES have an effect on what items are seen for selection so MAY improve (or not) the situation (probably not based on subsequent testing).

I'm not going to give you specific cases to show you there is more to that setting than it's name implies. You can easily test it for yourself if you don't believe me, or not, it's up to you, I really don't care either way.

My previous post was a little tongue in cheek because your earlier reply to me was unnecessary, if you didn't think it was relevant then just ignore it, don't make an issue out of it and try to get one over on me.

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It's not about you. It's about the facts of the matter and the quality of advice given in these forums. If a productivity tool has non-obvious quirks in features that I use, I want to know about it. And likewise, it's easy for advice like that to become cargo cult advice. Change this option because it might have some subtle effect. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. You can believe it if you want to, or not. I'd rather have a systematic understanding of what something does, though. 

So far I have not been able to detect any change in the move tool itself from this option. There are other non-obvious changes in behavior related to it, though. With the option on, when having the move tool selected, pressing esc will revert to the group tool, while the GROUP tool also works as a makeshift move tool. When disabling these options, never of those things are true anymore. So it is for example entirely possible that you pressed esc to cancel a move operation, pressed esc twice by accident so the group tool was selected, tried to move again using the group tool. Since the group tool can also perform a move operation that behaves slightly differently, you may now be thinking that it's the move tool that behaves differently. If you don't keep your eyes plastered on both the work area and toolbar at the same time, you might not even have noticed that the tool selection changed from one tool the other and back again. I might never have noticed this unless I got annoyed enough with how the move tool seemingly random stopped working. 

But again, I'm discussing these things because I want to advance an understanding of how the intricacies of Eagle work. Both for myself and other people. It's nothing personal.

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@rachaelATWH4 wrote:

If you read my subsequent post you'd see I did further experimentation and determined there is a difference between 8.7.1 and 9.2.2 specifically with via selection, likely related to the changes in the MOVE command which came in 9.1.0. 

Regards,

Rachael

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 I think nobody is denying THAT!

[rachaelATWH4]

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@didrik.madheden wrote:

It's not about you. It's about the facts of the matter and the quality of advice given in these forums. If a productivity tool has non-obvious quirks in features that I use, I want to know about it. And likewise, it's easy for advice like that to become cargo cult advice. Change this option because it might have some subtle effect. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. You can believe it if you want to, or not. I'd rather have a systematic understanding of what something does, though.

My original suggestion was just that, a suggestion for something for the OP to try. I wasn't at my computer at the time (the joys of being able to post on forums from your phone!) so wasn't able to confirm whether or not it had any effect on this specific issue at the time. As I said, I did go and check how the enabling and disabling of that option affected what objects were available for selection BEFORE I posted up my response to you this morning. So I think my systematic understanding is just fine thanks and so is the quality of the advice I give. I know how to use EAGLE just fine, I use it daily and have done for years, as it seems you have and do too, feel free to just ignore my posts to others from now on if you think you know better.

Have a good day.

Rachael

[didrik.madheden]

In the second post however, you did claim positively that it has some sort of effect. But again, this is not about you. It's about my desire to know what difference it actually makes, exactly. I'd ask you to take your own advice. If you can't, don't want to, or don't have time to answer in more detail, please ignore my request from now on. I'll sit down and experiment some more with it when I have time over. And I wish you a good day (evening?) too.

[rachaelATWH4]

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@didrik.madheden wrote:

But again, this is not about you. It's about my desire to know what difference it actually makes, exactly. I'd ask you to take your own advice. If you can't, don't want to, or don't have time to answer in more detail, please ignore my request from now on. 

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Didrik,

Lets take a step back. I felt you were rude to me unnecessarily in your initial reply and things have snowballed from there. 

So, to clarify, there is an effect on the way things select between this mode being on and off which is not related to hitting escape and changing back to group mode without realising. I will try at some point when I have a bit more time to record you a screencast to show you what I mean about the differences. It's not actually directly adding anything to this thread though as I'm pretty sure the issue here is relating to the change in the move command so needs one of the devs to take a look and see whether its something they think needs fixing, so I will dm you a link to a screencast when I have the time. 

Best Regards,

Rachael

[jorge_garcia]

Hi Guys,

I see what the issue is now. I work with Group Default On checked so whenever I need to move a via I've just been using the GROUP command and it cycle selects as expected. I can see what you guys mean about the move command not doing a cycle select on the vias.

Something is definitely wrong here. I'll make a bug report and and include this thread in it.

Best Regards,

[engineeringNCMXB]

I am glad this is being addressed - I have punched a few monitors trying to select vias. 
The frustration is a challenge to deal with when you have very little spare time.......

@jorge_garcia please save us all! lol!