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

[ezanker]

Still flashes for me in F12 mode.  I am running WinXP SP2 on a laptop with a dual core pentium and 2GB of memory.

For schematic component text, maybe you could automatically add the text objects to the drawing when adding a symbol.  Then the user could move the text around.  Perhaps you could have a property on the symbol for associated text such that when the values are modified, the text is automatically updated.  I realize this would complicate things and also mean that these associated text items should probably not be allowed to be deleted, etc.  Perhaps an option to show/hide associated text?  What do you think?

Erik

[bancika]

that makes the structure little complicated and break some nice things about modular component engine:

• one component should not know about other components, in case you need change/remove components. Here resistor would need to know and manipulate with text component
• when moving/deleting/editing resistor I'd have to worry about updating linked text components.

your machine seems strong enough, should work like that...which java version do you have? also, which directX version?
also, is it just flickering or it's slow, when you try to drag resistor around does it look smooth?
Anyone else has the flickering problem?

[scaesic]

resistor is not done yet, that's why you don't see it It's not easy to write math part for schematic symbols...

how about using a summation for a saw tooth wave? you could either do the first 5 terms and perform a moving average over it, or perform heaps of terms, you might need in the order of 10's to get it looking smoothish, and 100's if you want it looking perfect (computers are good at things like that though:))

http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques/latest/book-html/node189.html

[scaesic]

As for schematic symbol names/values, still can't think of a good way to do it. I mean, I could make it write the text at some pre-fixed place relative to the component but there's a good chance that it's not always the best place. Using additional text is a bit more work, but much more flexible. Any better ideas?

Cheers

i think editing a components name and value using right click is the best idea. The components name (e.g R1) should show up ON the resistor, and at the end you could add an option to list components with their values in a table, and shows up on screen underneath the board?

[scaesic]

that makes the structure little complicated and break some nice things about modular component engine:

• one component should not know about other components, in case you need change/remove components. Here resistor would need to know and manipulate with text component
• when moving/deleting/editing resistor I'd have to worry about updating linked text components.

your machine seems strong enough, should work like that...which java version do you have? also, which directX version?
also, is it just flickering or it's slow, when you try to drag resistor around does it look smooth?
Anyone else has the flickering problem?

no flickering problems here, dragging components around is a little laggy, but nothing like as laggy as the old version, in f12 mode its even less laggy, still noticble but neither modes bother me.

[ezanker]

your machine seems strong enough, should work like that...which java version do you have? also, which directX version?
also, is it just flickering or it's slow, when you try to drag resistor around does it look smooth?
Anyone else has the flickering problem?

The whole drawing disappears and then reappears quickly; however, it is not slow.  Dragging is fast and works fine.

[bancika]

The whole drawing disappears and then reappears quickly; however, it is not slow.  Dragging is fast and works fine.

hmm, shouldn't work like that, I made double buffering to prevent exactly that. 
Make sure that you have your graphics card set properly (hardware acceleration and similar stuff), also make sure you have java 1.5 or newer.

[ezanker]

Hardware acceleration is at full.

I downloaded latest java before running your program.

[bancika]

damn, I was hoping that by using Java we won't have this kind of crap with different machines/platforms, but...
Can't think of anything at the moment, but I'll read about it and see if we can do something...

[ezanker]

No worries!  Let's see if anyone else sees this issue.  It might be something specific to my PC...

[scaesic]

No worries!  Let's see if anyone else sees this issue.  It might be something specific to my PC...

what kind of graphics card have you got? maybe in "double buffering" to make sure it renders well it means poorer graphics cars arnt able to cope well?

[bancika]

I doubt it, I think that server I work on at home has integrated intel card which is probably very crappy itself and it's still fine.
Did you try any game on your pc?

[ezanker]

This is my work Dell laptop.  The video card is listed as
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M
Chip Type: GeFroce Go 7300
Memory Size: 256MB

So I don't think it is too crappy.  So far no one else has mentioned this issue, so let's see what happens...
Erik

P.S. This is my work PC, so I don't have any games loaded.

[bancika]

My machine at work has Quadro NVS 280 with only 64MB and it works great here.

[scaesic]

My machine at work has Quadro NVS 280 with only 64MB and it works great here.

need more testers i think.

[bancika]

yeah, I'll try it on another laptop...

[scaesic]

yeah, I'll try it on another laptop...

il try it on my flat mates decrepid 3 year old laptop with on board graphics tommorow, and report back.

[bancika]

I tried on the laptop and it worked fine, a bit slower than on desktop but no sign of flickering...

[bluetubes]

Great Job Bancika.  Downloaded the alpha and played with it for a bit.  Looks very cool    The control points on the wires are pretty slick. 

No flickering here.  I do however have a little lag dragging the components around.....but it's not a problem at all.  F12 definitely makes it a little better.

A couple of quick suggestions (if you wouldn't mind hearing them)...

1) Is there any way to hide the control points until a wire is "in Focus" or selected?  I had a bunch of wires running close together and it got pretty crazy to look at with all the control points showing.
2) IMO It would be a cool idea to include a "send to back" or "bring to front" feature for selected components.  For times when components cross or for wires that may go under or above components.

Thank you for this....I use your Layout Creator quite a bit.

[bancika]

Sure I don't mind, no matter how much I like hearing good stuff, it's critique that will actually make it better
1) I'll try to do something about it
2) check out few posts above, we agreed upon that.
Cheers!