DIY Layout Creator - software for easy drawing PCB, vero and perfboard layouts

[GGBB]

Gets the rotating job done very nicely!  Keeping the selections solves the problem of where to place them, too.  I would only wish that it would also automatically move any pads and interconnecting traces (not outside connections) since sometimes it is difficult to select everything.  Nice - this is maybe the most useful addition in quite a while.  Thanks.

[bancika]

That will be the next step

[GGBB]

That will be the next step

Excellent!

[bancika]

It requires some more thought...it's easy to move one control point of components like trace...but imagine having a trace connected to IC and you rotate trace only. The whole IC should move or rotate, not only the single point connected to the trace.

[GGBB]

I think that relates back to the question of "outside connections" but now it's "outside components."  If a user rotates a trace, does that mean they want to rotate everything connected to it?  Probably not I think.  I don't think there is a real use case for rotating a set of traces and pads.  I don't see that as particularly useful, but maybe that's just me.  I think users will always want to be rotating components and their pads and internal connections.  Maybe you don't need to provide rotation as an option for pad and traces - just do them automatically when components are rotated.

[bancika]

that's even more complicated to do I'm trying to do everything as general as possible. The main piece of logic doesn't know about component types in particular. I have some annotations I use to describe certain aspects of components, but other than that, they are treated equal.
For example, IC's are not stretchable, ie all points maintain their relative distance when you move one. FET symbol is not rotatable which means that during rotation you rotate its center and then just translate control points to maintain it's orientation.

[bassmanmike73]

I did some searching and didn't find any results about this.

Any plans to port DIYLC to iOS? I remember reading about an app that google developed to convert Java code to iOS compatible code, and it does everything but the GUI code. I can't remember the name of it off hand. But I'd buy DIYLC for my iPad and use it daily!

[carboncomp]

Sorry if this has been asked (I did skim though as many pages of the 104 as I could before my eyes teared up so bad I couldn't see the keyboard).

Are there any expansion for the program to add more component types?

I need to add one of those little push button PCB mount Tactical Switch, and a crystal? Even just being able to draw rectangles and name them for the BOM would be good!

[bancika]

Drawing primitives will be supported in the next version.

Re ios...I'd love to but I don't have enough time to do it. Planned to do android version but even that is hard to squeeze into the schedule.

Cheers

[carboncomp]

Thank you for all the hard work bancika! 

[bancika]

Just a heads up - I'm exploring possibilities of refactoring DIYLC to loosen dependencies to AWT and everything else not supported by Android Java. That will be phase 1. Phase 2 would be to do an Android implementation that shares core module and component library (both of which currently depend on AWT and cannot be ported to Android).
That would allow some core functionalities and components to be shared across platforms.

Due to work involved, Android version will probably not be free, but not expensive either (thinking 3-4$).

No plans for iOS yet.

[GGBB]

Something seems to have broken recently, or behavior was changed.  In 3.27, when I use Ctrl-Click to select multiple components, I can no longer click-drag to move them as a group.  As soon as I click down on one of the selected components it becomes the only selected component.  Seems like selection is happening on the mouse down rather than the mouse clicked.  However, if I drag an area to select components, then I can click down on and drag what I've selected.

[bancika]

thanks for reporting, going forward please post under diylc.org / Issues so I don't lose track
cheers

[samhay]

Hi,

~arph posted on June 21st (see below from cache; it seems to have been lost in the latest outage). I am having a similar problem but still using java version 6. I have posted this as an Issue (#229). Unfortunately, I am not having any luck running it manually from the terminal and it just hangs either way.

~arph's post:
Hi,

Is there a way to get an error log from the app?  As I just upgraded the Java on my Mac OSX (I believe it's Java 7u25) and now the UI is unresponsive. I fails to render properly and I can not click on anything.

I'm not sure it is a Java issue, but I just upgraded from diylc 3.7.0 to 3.27.0 and the problem persists. So it seems like it. I can file an issue on diylc.org if you like. I'm just checking if I can fix it myself

EDIT: found the log. No errors. The only strange thing is that it says :

11:40:00,661 DEBUG [main] DIYLCStarter - Java version: 1.6.0_51-b11-456-11M4508 by Apple Inc.
11:40:00,662 DEBUG [main] DIYLCStarter - OS: Mac OS X 10.7.5

While java -version gives:

java version "1.7.0_11"

UPDATE:

It runs fine when I manually run it from the JAR's without using the dedicated mac start icon.

[~arph]

Yeah.. I was too quick

It starts up fine manually, but after a few clicks it still stops responding. I reverted to my windows machine.
Good to know you filed an issue

[seedlings]

Fantastic program!  I just started using about two weeks ago, and am about to do my first PCB.  50 or so pages back, I read that you need to print at 200dpi to have the correct spacing for a PCB.

What are the current steps to print in the proper size for GIF?  I exported the traces, then did a little clean up with a graphics program, and printing at 30% of original size will get very close to the correct pin spacing, but I'd rather do the correct method.

One other thing... is there a way to mirror image the traces for printing, or should that be done in a graphics program?

Thanks!!!!
CHAD

[artifus]

i export to pdf from diylc. 300 or 600 dpi. no need to reverse traces, just text if any. i use inkscape for this if necessary - its multi platform freeware and well worth getting to know. check your printer software for preferences re: sizing and print quality. some offer mirror image and other stuff too. print a rough draft on paper first.

[deadastronaut]

^ yep, export traces to pdf.

@art: ive been trying to get my single pdf pcb image into inkscape so i can duplicate it and stop wasting paper..

but when it gets n inkscape ( using pdf snapshot) the image degrades badly or is oversized...hmmm...any tips on how to do this properly?...cheers man. rob.

[artifus]

( using pdf snapshot)

?

i've only ever used import or open from the file menu (open will go to import if you click a pdf). this can take sometime on this machine but when the 'pdf import settings' window eventually opens the only thing i change is 'precision of approximating gradient meshes' from the default 2.0 (rough) to the max 246.0 (very fine). no issues with rough import but seems to import faster when finer here, bizarrely. all other options default.

also, you may need to select all (ctrl a) and group (ctrl g) before attempting any moves or copies.

*also, also* before export from diylc move pcb to upper left corner of document. move inkscape import to upper left if necessary then either copy and paste or import again and move new import/copy to the right of original import and repeat until top row complete then start another row below until page full. hope that makes sense. there are prolly better ways of doing this but that's what i've settled on thru bumbling around ignorantly.

[deadastronaut]

Cheers art . Ill try it later . Just been bugging me for a while .