I took the plunge the other day and decided to suffer the pain of going through making a new PCB in Fusion.
I was using the new version, about to be released, so I cannot take up all issues until it is released.
I will just stick with what is also a problem in the existing version.
First of all, in general, it actually went pretty well. I got my schematic made and routed the PCB without major issues.
Pushing to 3D PCB brought up a bunch of issues, which mostly have all been reported.
But, the small annoyances... Oh dear!
1. I do not have the shortcuts to show/hide the various panels, such as Inspector, Design Manager e.t.c.
On Windows, this is apparently available in a menu. Not so on the Mac.
And, of course, this is not documented in the Autodesk documentation for Fusion Electronics.
Support is working on this, they say.
2. The grid settings are not persistent.
It defaults to 1.27mm, multiplier 10, grid off. This, I don't want so I change it.
But, it changes back to default, every time I open the design.
And, the default settings cannot be configured.
The "Default" button gives you exact this default setting. Go figure!
3. Window positions are not persistent.
I use the layer window A LOT, when working with a board.
I open it up and drag it out to the side, so I can keep it open and change the display of various layers easily, while I work.
But every time I open the layers, it smacks right in the middle of my board.
That is extremely annoying!
WHY CAN IT NOT REMEMBER WHERE I MOVED IT?
The DRC Error window remembers its position, so why not layers?
4. Layer window details.
Every time I open the layers display and select/unselect a layer, the "Details" expand, no matter if I have hidden it before.
Not only that, but there is also an huge about of spacing UNDER the details, making the actual list of layers pretty short.
Very annoying, as you need to scroll, scroll, scroll all the time.
Why can't the Details stay closed, until you need them.
5. I use the "Mark" function quite often.
I was going to complain that it is now in the "Document" section instead of "Design", but noticed it is in the lower small "toolbar" with Grid, Undo, Stop e.t.c.
I would LOVE to be able to place other stuff there, I miss the old EAGLE toolbars where EVERYTHING was directly available.
Now you have to flip/flop between Design and Document to access the various tools.
6. The status bar.
In EAGLE, you would get a short list of properties in the status bar, when you right-clicked a component.
Also, you would get the same information if you started to MOVE the component.
In Fusion, this is now a hybrid.
If you MOVE, you will get exactly the same info as in EAGLE. Great!
But if you right-click (and you have to do it TWICE!), you get a silly pop-up in the lower right corner (which is the reason for a lot of bug reports and problems). It automatically fades away (except when it's buggy and overlaps your other applications), and have a nice "link" on it saying "More Information", but which is impossible to click.
How about dropping that stupid popup and just have the information in the status bar as before.
7. "Pin to Shortcuts" ??
What does that do?
Customizing the toolbar works fine with "Pin to Toolbar", but "Pin to Shortcuts"?
I don't see ANY change anywhere if using this.
Was it supposed to be shown in the small bottom toolbar, now that would have been awesome!!
But, in that case, it doesn't work.
8. Copy & Paste has improved a lot, but WHY not go all the way????
It is STILL not possible to copy/paste between sheets in the obvious way.
a. right-click on a component or text, select Copy
b. go to other sheet, right-click and select Paste.
Nope!
You have to:
a. select a component (or many) with the select tool
b. choose move tool
c. right click a bit from the component to get the "Move group" option.
d. go to other sheet and the components selected, will "magically" follow on your cursor.
While that doesn't sound too bad, there is a few things...
- It's non-standard (except for EAGLE users, of course).
- If you want to COPY a component, you have to copy it on the initial sheet first, THEN you can select it and move it.
Well, that was what I could remember. I'm sure I forgot a lot.
Then there is of course A LOT of real BUGS, which have been reported to Support.
Who knows, this program might be pretty useful any year now.
Looking forward to your comments, @jorge_garcia
Or from anyone, actually.
What do YOU guys think?
