New version of Eagle

Have you looked at FreePCB? I think pretty much everyone (or anyone) will like the UI. It just plain makes sense even if you have never looked at a PCB layout program.

The only thing about the UI I don't care for is the way they handle branches and connections to power planes. This is treated as a special case reflecting the fact that the data base has to include a "special" feature to describe them. A branch is done by selecting the virtex and "connecting" it to a pin in the same net. This adds a ratline between the two and allows you to route a trace. If you start the trace first, you can never get the data base to understand that the two points are connected.

A connection to a power plane is done with a similar construct he calls a "stub". Select the pin and start a "stub route". Where this ends a via is added with a "forced" or "fixed" (not sure of the proper name) attribute.

Personally I find both of these a bit awkward and feel that the software should recognize anytime traces of the same net are electrically connected. But it seems this is a big job and the author liked his way better.

How do other PCB layout packages handle routing branches and power plane connections?

The main thing I like about it is the fact that there is tons of support available from the author and especially other users. There is one person in particular who has written supporting software for FreePCB who seems to always reply to requests for help or suggestions on how to best do a task. This is better than the support I have ever gotten from any company.

Pulsonix does that sort of thing in a very intuitive manner. It also has useful features like star points. Download the demo and see for yourself:

Support is excellent.

Leon

It's certainly well above average, but at least for *me* to call it excellent they'd have to fix all their stupid little bugs, such as getting pin name labels to end up in the right positions when you use next gate/previous gate, that they've known about for something like a year now (although it's clear someone there tried to fix it in the latest release, but unfortunately ended up making it worse!).

I have pretty high standards though... to me something like ORCAD (which has tons of bugs that have been around for many years, nearly non-existant "support," and lacks features that make something like Pulsonix more productive) is clearly in the "sucks hard" category whereas plenty of people would label it as "OK."

---Joel

Personally I am dying to get away from Orcad. But I don't want to jump from the frying pan into the fire. The next chance I get, I am going to evaluate some of the open source programs. I am a big fan of open source at this point.