Why is layout/schematic software so klunky?

This may be a bit OT for this group, but given the audience here, I thought I'd get better feedback.

I've recently had the opportunity to review a number of schematic and layout packages and have come to the conclusion that everything out there sucks. There is very little that is intuitive and many of the features are poorly integrated. I'm not compeltely against these packages, but I see a lot of room for improvement.

In mechanical cad, a few years ago there was a bit of a revolution when SolidWorks, SolidEdge and to a lesser extent Pro/E suddenly came out as intuitive, well designed packages and simply blew AutoCAD drafting off the map. So why hasn't the same thing happened in the elec eng world and do people still put up with all the oddities of OrCAD and the like?

Any thoughts?

Chris

Reply to
kmaryan
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I sort of like PADS. It's not easy to learn, but probably no PCB package could be. But it's very solid, not quirky, and draws very handsome schematics. It's smart enough to realize that a schematic is not just a bunch of lines, but parts and connections.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Depends on your knowledge of the process. If you don't know much about PCB layout, then it will take time to learn and appreciate (or not) why the packages do what they do. Which packages have you tried? You may have tried only the mickey mouse packages. If you think a PCB layout program can do the layout for you, you are expecting too much. Good PCB layout require a skilled operator. These skills take years of experience. Readable schematics also takes practice.

If you know about the subject then the various tools just take time to learn like any tool. The problem with modern tools was taking really good DOS tools like Orcad SDT and reworking them with a crummy Windoze interface and enhanced crashability. Generally, the modern schematic/layout packages work well together. Just takes time to learn.

SolidWorks was anything but intuitive. It was the first CAD program I have used that required reading the manual just to get started. Plus, there's lots of ways to do things poorly in SolidWorks unless you bone up on proper methods of using the package.

Perhaps you should go back to hand drawings and PCB layout work. You won't gripe as much! Board checks could take two people a full day. I do miss the tape tit though.

Mark

Reply to
qrk

What must be realised is that 'intuitive' CAD relies solely upon the intuition of the user. If you are familiar with the design elements of a particular discipline and have used similarly structured CAD packages before, then such CAD can appear to be intuitive to the user.

SolidEdge is a wonderful example of this. From before it appears that as you feel it is somewhat intuitive yet it is (was) particularly difficult/obscure without a user history of n years of autodesk products. The reasons for this are fairly obvious since, notwithstanding the software limitations, there was a requirement for as simple a migration path as possible from that already learnt. Not intuitive - just already known.

When the concepts of a task are poorly understood then the CAD becomes more difficult. "Why can't I easily/doesn't it simply" is the statement oft quoted by those with a limited understanding of why it *cannot* be easily anything-ed without more information being given or the sotware making unjustly wild assumptions. Klunky is when it will not make such assumptions.

Reply to
R.Lewis

Well, I'm moreless happy with Protel. A colleague of my that was really into Orcad, tried to switch to Protel but got stuck at one point as he found Protel to be equally quirky, just at other locations.

There is always a point where the concept of a software turns to spaghetti. Be that the 4th version or the 10th. Then comes the compatibility issue of having legacy data and worse legacy users. The legacy data requires to be readable with the new version. The legacy user wants the look and feel to be the same. Both are a drag.

Then, a software company has to roll out new versions quick to get the money rolling in. Again here is the MS shaddow of adding new features before fixing bugs.

Compared to a 3D cad, schematic capture and layout is orders of magnitude more complex. This also restricts new companies from entering the market. You'd need NN man years from zero to the first version while the competition isn't idle. If the team isn't ideal or optimal, the money is gone before something grabbable is there.

I worked with even more complex software, fluid dynamic modelling and electromagnetic modelling. The market there is much smaller, the software packages orders of magnitudes more expensive and the clunkyness borders to the uselessness.

Rene

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Reply to
Rene Tschaggelar

Hello Chris,

Try Cadsoft Eagle. I found it easy to learn and was humming before reading the user manual that came with it. The only thing I find a bit weird is the library editor but I guess that just takes time getting used to. Eagle is nicely integrated.

CAD is a cake walk compared to compilers. I just started using a new one for micro controllers. In the last three hours I had half a dozen hard freezes, one of them requiring a flip of the power switch. Now that is frustrating.

I am still missing my trusty old DOS-Orcad. That was the best, hands down. Number of crashes in about ten years: Zero.

Well, have you looked at the price tag for SolidWorks? Sure, it's nice and I like the 3D rendering. But you can buy a decent newer model car for that money. Also, from what I have seen at my clients I believe AutoCad is alive and kicking. One reason is that a very large group of designers is familiar with it.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Did you try Pulsonix:

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It's the most intuitive PCB software I know of.

Leon

Reply to
Leon Heller

As others have noted, depends on what you mean by clunky.

Does Orcad (to name but one) have quirks? You bet. Does Allegro (pro level layout tool) have quirks? No doubt.

There was a thread on this a month or so ago and the bottom line is that to get the features necessary in high end tools (50+ page schematics, netlisting to virtually anything, database integration, proper DRC), you have to devote some time to learning how to use the package.

I have used a lot of packages, and I find Orcad quite intuitive - after many years of use. Some features are intuitive in the CUI paradigm - right click an object to bring up properties etc.

Allegro and Orcad can drive you crazy, but once you know how to really drive them, you can design all manner of boards. Take a backplane with

24 sets of connectors for 24 front boards, 6 sets for spine units, distributing 60-100A just for internal board power, two in-system ethernet locales, I2C everywhere and, to top it off, over 4000 2.5Gb/s pairs running between various points. Oh, and a total of over 13000 connector pins.

(I did one of those, and the boards that plugged in).

Alternatively, take a board (it was designed for the system above, by me) that had a pin density of over 150 pins/sq. in.

To get the 16/28+/whatever layer support, you need a high end tool. Some things are not going to be easy, but they are there for the experienced user. Indeed, both those tools, and other high end tools, support scripting languages to automate tasks.

Likewise the capture - autogenerating a BOM with internal part numbers, mfr's part numbers, reports from every which way (which you need for any serious commercial project) is not going to make for an easy to use tool.

So in the end it comes down to what you need for the design task. Hefty designs usually mean hefty tools.

PeteS

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Reply to
PeteS

In my opinion...the fundamental reason for any software not doing what a user would expect is simply because the writers of the software are not themselves power users of such software.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

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SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Kevin snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk

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Yet Another Blondie Tribute Band

Reply to
Kevin Aylward

I'd guess that perhaps 100 mechanical CAD packages are sold (at all levels) for each PCB CAD package, so the development costs can be amortized over many more sales. Also it's fairly 'obvious' what a mechanical CAD system is trying to do- produce solid objects. PCB technology is a moving target, and what I as a user really want is something that ensures my design will work first go, hence the evolution of CAD systems to include simulation, EMC and heat analysis etc. I'd really like it integrated with mechanical CAD too.

Paul Burke

Reply to
Paul Burke

Cadence Design and Mentor Graphics both sell high-end stuff like that. On the front end you can specify a gazillion parameters for each signal (controlled impedances, sets of traces with matching length, etc.) and on the back end you can feed it all into a giant simulation engine that checks (somewhat) for EMI and other signal integrity issues.

But it's still clunky to use.

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Reply to
Tim Wescott

Ok, where shall I begin... 8-)

First off, schematic capture is a necessary evil for companies that need it to drive their REAL money making products. No one makes a mint doing schematic capture, you make money doing simulation, or PCB layout, or logic design, or anything, but not with schematic capture. Therefore, while it is NECESSARY, it does not get the resources that your real money makers get.

Next, there is the history. Most of the schematic capture products on the market today started out in DOS or UNIX or some other OS, and has now be moved to Wintel or Linux or whatever. That history has good and bad things associated with it, but you really notice the bad things, especially if you are a new user, and those history things aren't helpful.

Also, there is the What do you REALLY want to do with this? problem. Schematic capture has all these different back end applications, each with its own needs and requirements. Jim really likes PSpice Schematics because it was designed to do just one thing - drive PSpice. He hates Orcad Capture, partly because it has a lot of baggage added to do PCB layout, digital logic design, and who knows what else! Each application's requirements means more complexity on the front end that YOU don't need cause you aren't doing that!

And finally, since there isn't really any money in doing schematic capture, there is no incentive to maybe start over, and do it from scratch. While maybe some of the open source initiatives might go into this, most commercial vendors have a vested interest in NOT creating a new front end application. Because of this, every vendor's tools have their own idiosyncracies and quirks, and user's just have to get over it, and learn the tools...

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Reply to
Charles Edmondson

I agree.

Protel is crying out for a decent interface. It is a mix of Windows standard conventions and the old DOS Protel. For example, to delete stuff, you select "Delete" from the menu and go around clicking on stuff to delete - a non-Windows approach. But to Copy stuff, you select the stuff via the "Select" menu, then you go to the standard Windows "Copy" menu. Gradually you learn the shortcuts and you get productive. Then you find individuals who love Protel, but I think they haven't thought about the issues. How can people pay $1000s for slow, bugged, amateur software ?

If Microsoft Word had the Protel interface, the business community would be using typewriters - there is no way a non-geek can learn Protel.

Perhaps engineering types run CAD development - not people who understand software. Good software requires people who have knowledge of software and knowledge of the application domain, and there aren't many of them. It takes a lot of thought to put a simple interface on a complex task.

I know of one Windows standard Schematic software : TinyCAD. It works like Word - click on a symbol and it is selected. Ctrl-click to add a symbol to the selection. Go to Edit | Delete or Edit | Copy etc to operate on the selection. Click on a symbol and you can drag it - click on a selection and you drag it all. Every time I fire up Protel after a few months away, I scream with frustration, until I get broken in again. But I can run TinyCAD anytime.

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I now use TinyCAD for all my schematics at work, unless it has to go on a PCB - then it is back to Protel.

Roger

Reply to
Roger Lascelles

Because the semi-pro/pro packages (ie. Orcad) cost at least 10 times that?

/A

Reply to
Anders F

I actually used, and loved, OrCAD SDT while it was DOS-based. Then it became the BIGGEST ABORTION EVER IN HISTORY in the transition to a GUI :-(

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

PC motherboards are done by people who have done it a time or a hundred before. Much is seat-of-the-pants. Some higher-end hardware developers use in-house software that makes the commercial stuff look rather pale. Sometimes this "super-secret" in-house stuff (or the result) is talked about at conferences.

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  Keith
Reply to
Keith Williams

Because - in my opinion - the packages try to do to much and they do not like each other. There must be only One seems to be the Attitude!!!

Look at Protel f.ex: Is is a schematics editor, a logic compiler, an IDE, a simulation tool, a component inventory management system, a PCB layout package or somthing different entirely? Each job is hard in itself and slapping them all together in one big pile of applications is begging for trouble!!

IF the vendors would get their act together and make some way to exchange design data then the "monolithts" can be broken into a diverse set of effective, specialised, tools - but that will just never happen because everybody wants to own the consumers of the tools (yes-consumers: you get the $$$-"support" rammed down your throat, you do not ASK for upgrades; you

*will* be upgraded or be left isolated ... Autocad comes to mind).

I.e. The market is chopped into itty-bitty islands with no way to move to different tools.

DOS Orcad was neat - there were Two Bugs: I did not "hash-fill" properly on rotated components in the schematics editor and lines had to be butted together to connect (and sometimes netlists had to be hand-fitted to the

*then* "they" f***ed it over by adding features until the once-simple-but-usable tool collapsed under it's own weight!

For hobby use, I would use Eagle.

Reply to
Frithiof Andreas Jensen

It was a sad day when OrCad adopted the Windows platform...

Bob

Reply to
Bob Stephens

That is what I like about TARGET3001 CAD program. This schematic, layout program is integrated in one surface, easy to use and still powerful. ..richard

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Reply to
richard

I have the 10.3 version... whether I want it or not, it comes with PSpice. I only use it to convert PSpice (MicroSim) Schematics to OrCAD Capture format when a customer insists.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

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