Hi All,
Rather than occupying space with what DEX `can't do' I would like to see some boards that have been done with DEX small and large.
I am a hobbyist and have made several boards with DEX that are available for perusal here. http://www.dontronics.com/micks-mites/files/
Thanks for the demo files. i'll take a look. And, not to criticize your work, but these are 'hobbyist' projects.
I am attempting a 'real' project that follows industrial design rules. That is the nature of my evaluation. Even if i design something for myself as hobby i like to use 'best practices'. That is how i am wired.
This topic has a long history and is spread over many different threads. to bring you up to speed :
The root trigger for this was the abysmal demo's shown on Dex website. That arduino layout is absolute disaster. Anyone in the PCB business that sees that image as 'demo' will immediately write off the CAD program. I know that is prejudice but that how it works. So that drawing reflects very bad on DEX.
So i said i was going to try to re-make a relatively simple design with a few TQFP's and some 'fancy' part to show a proper layout . So i downloaded and installed DEX. The problem began with the libraries. These are full of errors. an SMD capacitor linking to a thru-hole footprint , wizards that don't work and create wrong footprints. then we got to download a 'community library' that turned out basically to be Iliya that had 'stolen' the eagle libraries and converted them to DEX .. the eagle libraries too are total crap. The problem with all these low level tools is that NONE of em follow the standards. There is a footprint standard called IPC7135 and a whole rule set to create correct footprints that are manufacturable reliably. The problem is this standard costs a lot of money. There is even a program form IPC itself where you punch in the numbers and it creates you a footprint that is compliant.
so i set forth with the idea , let me create a mini library with a few parts like an 0603 and 0805 and sot23 and some other packages that ARE standard compliant , save those and release them for free. Dex can distribute those .
so then i started playing with the software and ran into all kinds of strange behavior and limitations. screen artifacts, selections that don't work , coordinate systems that go wonky. Entry fields that don't do anything. Dex has , from a user perspective, a massive amount of unfinished stuff in it that should not be there. some of the control layouts are illogical. If i am editing the properties of a pad it is illogical that i need three tabs and two panels to do that.
Then there is base shortcomings. like missing soldermask and pastemask layers. i can't even design a standard compliant part if i have no way to set up the parameters for the masks. then there are base manipulations that don't work. like being able to move a selected group of elements from point a to point b . you can only set the center of the group. Any cad program allows point to point translation. Dex doesn't have that. These are missing fundamental operations that make the software unworkable. it simply takes too much time and too much effort to do something simple.
When called out, i get blasted back with either no comments , remarks on my typing skills or the traditional 'apple' method : you don't need that.
To add insult to injury Iliya is now starting to look to read some books about PCB design because he finally realizes that he does not have the Design know how to understand why these things are problems. He may be a top nothc programmer ( i could n't do it , and neither could many other people) but , last time he made a board was with thru hole components on rubylith. 40 years ago ( he admitted that himself.) By today's standard he couldn't design himself out of a wet paper bag ...
It's 2015 ... we do chip-on chip designs with 20 layers and embedded passives inside the board and flex pigtails coming out. Open a smartphone or photocamera or tablet. That kind of stuff.
The 'it's for hobbyists' statement is also getting a bit old. Hobbyists these days make multilayer boards with BGA's on em have em fabbed in china. We live in a world with endless possibilities.
For me that is the fundamental problem behind the shortcomings of dex : the author does not understand the design process of a board with modern technology.
Throughout all my postings i have given detailed descriptions of what is missing and why we need it. but it all gets shoved aside.
i am not here to take the piss out of Dex or Iliya (despite what he may think , and yes tempers do flare because i do not tolerate stubbornness easily, especially when i am trying to teach you something. i have no problem explaining something over and over because you do not understand , i do have a problem with people that don't want to listen.) I am trying to apply feedback and show where the critical roadblocks are to make DEx really great and usable for real projects.
along the way i find lot's of tiny little bugs and 'oversights'. I can understand that , as the author, you get upset if there is a guy that keeps rubbing your nose in bug after bug. But it has to happen. As a programmer you are blind for shortcomings and idiosyncrasies in your own program. you know how the program works and you do not 'step out of line'. well, it is that stepping out of line that makes bugs surface.
My prodding around and expectations is based on my experience with lots of different programs : Orcad, DxDesigner, Pads, Pcad, ,Tango , Autotrax ( dos version) Smartwork , hiwire , Opus ( Cadence) , Solidworks , Rhino , turboCad, Illustrator and many more.
There is a large amount of 'common behavior that all these programs share when it comes to simple manipulations. they all work identical. Dex is the odd one out.
i will give a simple example of an 'oddity' in the UI of dex.
Start MSpaint.
pick a line width with the line width picker. , and pick a color.
now draw a straight line
if you now go back to the line width picker and change the width the width of the drawn object changes. same for color.
in essence these controls work as follows : you can pick parameters and then draw an object.
if an object is selected and you alter these controls they have a direct impact on the selected object.
Excel works the same way. powerpoint works the same way , all cad programs out there work the same way.
DEX ? hell no. to alter the color of a selected object you need a DIFFERENT toolbar somewhere completely where you don't expect it. the width is then hidden in another toolbar. to add insult to injury you have no clue what width will be as there is a bug that makes that the width control does not follow the selected units ( if set in millimeters and you type '1' your line is 1 inch wide ...
those are problems that have NOTHING to do with PCB design but everything with UI design. Having a program that cannot even do such simple things is a problem.
another gripe in dex : i am placing some parts and decide i want to alter a symbol. i cannot open the symbol. i need to close my work , open the symbol , do stuff there, then reload my project. i want my symbol and my board side by side so i see in real time what happens if i alter my symbol.
These are annoyances that accumulate very quikcly.
but lo and behold if you dare point them out. Fire and brimstone.
anyway. that is the short story of where we are.
i have to shoot another short video. i found something to edit at least the soldermask in a component , it is incomplete and cumbersome but it works. although i have at the same time found at least 5 other 'UI problems ... where doing something doesn't yield the result you'd expect. in 3d mode you can alter the soldermask expansion, except the screen does not get redrawn. to see it you need to go back to 2d and then back to 3d. (yust toggle so the screen redraws.)
All that is needed is, after a value change, to redraw the screen. This is a small oversight , but frustrates the hell out of me. How is it possible that such a simple operation has a bug in it. Doesn't anyone really try this thing ? How come nobody has flagged this ?