Cadsoft Eagle review by a new user
Pete decided to try out Cadsoft Eagle and write about his experience. The first impression wasn’t the best.
I finally decided to download and learn to use the industry-standard PCB and schematic layout software: Eagle. I’ve tried a bunch of others, and quite frankly, got tired of always using “also ran” software. The majority of the info on the web is for Eagle. It certainly doesn’t have the best UI or the best workflow, but it has absolutely the most amount of information and the best support from PCB manufacturers. It’s the industry standard, and like most industry-leading technical software (ever use industry-leading 3d modeling software? Gak!), it has some crazy issues.
We’d suggest that Eagle is more a hobbyist and open hardware standard, with much more expensive software dominating most pro design shops. We stick with Eagle for exactly the same reasons though. Most people have it, and there’s a ton of documentation out there for it. We’d prefer an open program like KiCAD, but it’s not going to appeal to as many people.
Don’t let the file format dictate your choice though. Every PCB manufacturer worth using supports Gerbers, and every CAD program worth using should have a way to export them.
This entry was posted in software and tagged Cadsoft Eagle, library, User Interface.
Comments
I hate that button…
That button does not delete a library. It simply removes it from the active search list. Some users where overwhelmed by the number of libraries or they simply like to just use certain libraries.
That’s what the drop button is for.
You can restore everything by typing Use * followed by enter in the command line. There are GUI mechanisms to do this, but it’s easier to explain the typed method.
Hth,
Jorge Garcia
Cadsoft Support
In English, the word “drop” would never be used in that way. “Hide” might be appropriate to the function you’ve described, but to the English-speaking user, “drop” would mean “drop the component on the schematic.” I might add that even “Hide” would not make much sense in that context since the immediate screen shows a single component rather than an entire library.
This is only one instance of dozens where either bad translation or just plain poor word choice mars the functioning of your product. “RTFM” you say? It’s no better, and when nomenclature on the interface confuses rather than enlightens, the manual means nothing.
CadSoft needs to stop the denial and face up to the fact it has a serious language problem. It doesn’t need useless admonitions to “read the F…… manual.” It’s no better than the interface.
Hi Todd,
The RTFM comment was not mine, that was another Jorge although I understand where the confusion stems from.
The confusion with the Drop button has been recognized before, as well as the GUI complaints. These issues are being discussed, changes will be made. Keep in mind the enormity of the task, EAGLE’s development team is small, and a GUI overhaul(should they decide to do that) takes some time.
Thank you for your suggestions and comments.
Best Regards,
Jorge Garcia
Cadsoft Support
Classic RTFM candidate.
-J
Dear DP,
I don’t agree with you on sticking to Eagle. It’s true that many hobbyists use it, but keep in mind that they use it because of a closed cycle: since open source shops use Eagle, many beginners think that it is the best choice and start to use. Since many hobbyists use Eagle, more and more OSHW companies use it and the cycle closes. While Eagle is an excellent CAD package for a commercial company, for a hobbyist it’s a trap. Limitations of the free version make the program suitable for work only on small projects. For someone who will never design anything bigger than an Arduino shield, the limitations are not a concern. However, those who will mature to design bigger and more complicated circuits will face the choice: either throw away their customs libraries and existing designs and find and learn another PCB package, or spend $$$ on the commercial version.
Somebody has to break the cycle and show people that they do not have to use Eagle.
Regards,
j, former Eagle user.
J,
What do you use?
You forget the cost of learning a new program.
I never ran into the limitations of the free version for hobby use. THe only ‘limitation’ is that the whole schematic needs to be on one page. but that page is unlimited in size so it is not a very big limitation.
KiCad
I’m with Pete. It’s good of CadSoft to offer a free limited version for hobbyists, but after a year of constant hassles, I’ve given up on it. At best I need to do a schematic/layout maybe six times a year, and without constant use and practice, Eagle is all-but useless to me. Here are my main reasons.
1. Its functions, user interface, and terminology are among the most counter-intuitive of any software I’ve ever used over the past 30 years. I’m a strong believer in some degree of standardization that allows for the accumulation of “meta-knowledge”–knowledge that works across models, brands, and even languages. Example: the layout and operating interface of any automobile in the world. The order and function of the pedal, the sequence and pattern of shifters (H-pattern, etc), the general location of switches, etc. As a Linux user, I don’t like to admit it, but Windows or Mac GUIs work the same for all programs (and of course so do Linux GUIs). Microsoft likes to monkey with their interface for every 18-month Windows (XP, Vista, 8, etc) release in the interests of novelty, but some of us remember the old days when each application had its own hotkeys, menu items and structure, and the learning curve was steep for new programs or even versions. It’s a step in the wrong direction, then that the CadSoft Volk have designed an interface and methodology too unique and too particular. I hate it.
2. A really big problem in at least the English version is that many of the translations for the function names or procedures are very poor, some are absolutely misleading in English. Frankly, I can’t imagine paying any money at all for software so poorly documented. Germans may know a lot more English than most English speakers know German, but they really need a native speaker of English–one British and one American–to make Eagle’s English interface something other than a maddening pain in the ass.
3. Like a lot of software (and cameras and DVD players and you-name-it) that has too many obscure and rarely-used features, Eagle makes it hard to just do something simply and without hassle. Über example: Eagle forces the user to define component pin-outs and footprints before a symbol can be used in a schematic. Uh, I often don’t know precisely what package or footprint I’m going to use when I draw a schematic to develop a circuit at the breadboard stage. Because of the nature of what I do, I’m not even sure I’ll be using an SMD or through-pin version for something at that stage. You know what I’ve been doing to get around this with Eagle? I use a pencil and paper to draw out a working draft of the circuit. After I’m okay with the design, then I have to enter it into Eagle. It’s B.S.
4. Because I’m a committed open-source kind of guy, I’m learning to use the gEDA suite. So far, so good. Since it’s goal anyway to weed out every bit of proprietary software I can, Eagle is now one for the compost pile, along with the horse and cow manure I get from local farmers (they’re open-source, too).
Todd
I do exclusively my schematic/pcb design with eagle so I’m a bit colored in my opinion. I tried many (windows) alternatives, but eagle is my favorite.
The user interface is a bit different then a regular windows program, but this is a common thing for socialistic software. An other (comparble) example is autocad. it can be operate purely with the mouse, but they have lots of keyboard shortcuts to make it easier. These program look a bit diffcult/counterintuitive at first but after working a bit longer you know why they chosen to do it different. And yes i’ve been around for quite some days and seen the early days of userinterfaces.
If your library contains all the shapes of a particular chip then changing the package is a simple thing. It puts a constrain on adding parts, but most packages are already added and can be reused. You can use the command replace part and then choose a different package of the chip.
BTW no flame intended.
Even the commercial version of Eagle is relatively cheap (US$1640 for a single user with all features – cheaper for multi-user). Good CAD software is *expensive* – you can easily pay US$2500+ per seat. Unless you have a lot of money anyone not designing in a commercial environment is unfortunately stuck with stuff that is often less than brilliant.
You can’t compare prices for this kind of software with things like Microsoft Windows or Office – they are only as cheap as they are because they sell in tens or hundreds of millon copies. Making quality software commercially is a time-consuming and therefore expensive business. Something that will sell only a few thousand copies will of necessity be expensive.
Todd, I saw your point number 3:
..I often don’t know precisely what package or footprint I’m going to use when I draw a schematic to develop a circuit at the breadboard stage. Because of the nature of what I do, I’m not even sure I’ll be using an SMD or through-pin version for something at that stage…
I was using Eagle 4.16 Professional for several commercial projects a few years ago and had a similar problem. For me it was clearance and creepage distances for MOSFET pins in a high voltage enivironment. My solution was to add more packages to the same component and then change them in the layout editor.
Lets say I needed another shape of the Drain pin, my workflow was:
1. Open up the library, footprint editor and the selected footprint.
2. Display all layers, mark all the component as a group and copy
3. Create a new footprint with a similar name, ie TO220_SpecialDrainPin
4. Paste the original footprint and make the changes
5. Now open the component that needs the new footprint
6. Add the footprint and do all the connecting stuff. Not nice for 80 pins TQFPs…
7. Save the library and go back to the layout editor
8. From the library menu select Update and the library you just edited
9. Usually some message box about possible board changes may appear, no problems
10. Select Change package and the component you want to change.
Perhaps not the most intuitive way to do it, but that was how I did it back then. I will try the newer versions of Eagle to see whats new since 4.16… I am lucky enough to have commercial licences at my work place for Altium Designer. It has a lot of nice and handy features but also a lot of flaws in both functionality and the user interface.
I’m using DipTrace, free edition and it’s really very intuitive. I used eagle, but I never really liked it. Its developpers seems to still work on PC under GEM or Win 1.0. They never saw how a GUI should be these days. Everything is counter intuitive in Eagle, you need to spend more than 2 or 3 weeks working with it to learn to make simple circuits and do simple things like switching a component from one side to the other, or to split a schematics in multiple parts. Learning to Do all that (including creating your own parts) in diptrace or designspark takes less than 3 hours with the provided PDF tutorials in both softwares.
I really cannot understand or defend a software under windows that does not handle Copy/Paste like 99.99999% of software in the world on ANY desktop manager.
Eagle is the most used by hobbists because it was the first software (since MSDOS vers) provinding an autorouter that was providing a free version for hobbist. Things are changing these days, and I’m sure it will not keep ruling.
As for hundreds of provided libs with eagle, I can only say onething: Check ANY part you are going to use especially for SMD ones, there are a lot of errors there!!!!
With eagle you can do ANYTHING, I’m not saying it’s unable to let you make some kind if circuit, but this does not make eagle a “great” software. “great” software HELPs you, makes things more fun and give you the ability to do all you wants in an easier manner: eagle is just the contrary of all that.
While I used personally a lot LaTex as a wordprocessor for making high quality scientific papers, I would never recommand it against Winword for 99% of users. Eagle is just as difficult to learn as LateX and it adds the fact that (contrarily to Latex) it’s completely illogic, completely trashy !!!!
I have to politely disagree with DP’s comment about using KiCad. From my perspective, it is the industry and community makes any software an industry standard. Been there done that, I had been an Eagle user for pretty much my whole career and it took only a few days worth hard work and a little patience before I could use KiCad as comfortably as I did with Eagle. In my opinion, KiCad is way better than Eagle for the reasons like online DRC, text bases file formats, unlimited layers, unlimited board size etc… after all it is free and open. We have switched to KiCad completely and now porting every single design and hopefully, there is no going back. We have even posted some of the designs publicly for the community (Including Ian’s CPLD design). I’m pretty confident that KiCad will become hobbyist’s industry standard one day.
as Free Eagle alternative I used KiCAD or DesignSpark PCB
I was the one with the RTFM comment. Page 111 Eagle Manual Version 5, 8 Edition:
“If a certain library should not be listed in the ADD dialog anymore, select the
library name in the tree and click the Drop button. Now it is not in use
anymore.”
Another useful feature about taking particular libraries out of the list is that parts from those
libraries don’t show up as results doing wildcard searches.
And last but not least, while we accept and deal with English as sort of a universal
language for technology, not all developments on technology happen in English speaking
countries, and yes some documentation could be prone to have some confusing or
misleading translation.
If you don’t like the English version of the manual, just try the original in German, it is much
better :-)
In that case it would be LDVH
Cheers
(The other Jorge :-)
:) even their manual is arrogant.
Frankly, If I were a small company with a small staff, the first thing I would have my people do is change the GUI to fit the 100% standard GUI that is adopted and accepted all over the world. Frankly I would gladly not have any of the updates/upgrades made to eagle in the last few years, if in their place I had a GUI that is normal. I am talking about the Select, Move, Move group, cut, copy, paste…all of these need to be replaced with standard now used everywhere.
Cadsoft this is a serious appeal. You need to realize that your GUI doesn’t work, and needs to be fixed. The function of a GUI is not only to allow you to do something, but to let you do that with ease.
I have to agree that this cut paste copy thing they do kept me away for many years. Yuck.