DEX eval by free_electron

[nctnico]

Quote

What happens when you have spent years doing something in a way that you never questioned and then somebody comes along with a different way of doing things that could possibly be better and you didn’t even bother to RTFM or WTFV?

Question both ways.
Compare both ways.
Ask why one way is done more than the other.
Ask the person promoting the different way what benefits it has.
Ask the person promoting the different way what drawbacks it has that they know of.
Inform the person promoting the different way of drawbacks they may not be aware of.
Discuss the benefits and drawbacks.

You appear to be single sided. You forgot...

Ask the person promoting the old way what benefits it has.
Ask the person promoting the old way what drawbacks it has that they know of.
Inform the person promoting the old way of drawbacks they may not be aware of

I don't think you can convince anyone that drinking while standing upside down works better because nobody drinks in that position. You really have to split parts into symbols and footprints and allow sharing of these between parts in order to make your software work for anything beyond hobby level. There are no better ways to deal with parts. That doesn't mean you have to put these in seperate files; nobody is asking you to do that!

Again: a part is nothing more than a manufacturer part number, internal part number, supplier order code, symbol, footprint and maybe pricing, second sources, status (obsolete), etc, etc. This is done to make sure symbols and footprints don't need to be re-designed for every part, footprints can be changed to cater for a different soldering process or other purposes and for the logistics of building a circuit. If I add a chip in a SOIC package to my part database I don't want to think about what the SOIC package looks like. I just attach an existing known-good SOIC footprint to it.

[mstevens]

Iliya, from the feedback of seasoned PCB CAD users, it seems that there is a genuine need for an option, at least, for a split database for symbols and footprints. Is your reluctance to implement it due to difficulties with software modifications or a conviction that a change is unnecessary?

The problem is not software modification it is I just don’t see the point.

The relational database will also allow version control.

GIT ... all other version control systems are obsolete. DEX I cutting edge, so should be its VCS. Please don't waste time on any other VCS.  ... of course GIT is so cool that it can be used stand alone with anything you want to VC but having it built in would be nice. I've already submitted a feature request.

[Wytnucls]

Your idea of a IC symbol is a rectangle with pins. That is a very narrow view.  I may want to split the device in mulitple parts so i can put one section on page 1 and another section on page 7.
section one is drawn as a circle with a cross in it (could be an analog multiplier) while section two is a triangle (opamp).  so this 'auto generation does not work , unless all you create is 'blobs'.  That is not how schematics are drawn. A schematic needs to be readable. Drawing everything as simple rectangles
doesn't work.

Just a tip. Check the video below where a part is split and edited in three schematic sheets.


In the video you still have the three rectangles, but they could potentially be modified into circles, triangles, etc.

The trick is if the splitted part can be saved to the library. It probably can, but I did not explore this.

Haven't been able to change the split symbols into any other shape (you don't get the bare connection circles for pins after the rectangle deletion). It also looks like the split can only be saved as a design, not a part. Maybe Iliya can expand on this.
The 'Designs' tree behaves strangely. Rename doesn't work and a new design can only be saved under existing master folders: amplifiers, Oscillators, Power Supples (SIC) and Spice.
In the details of the new design, 'device type' selection doesn't work, it always revert to 'Any'. It does work for parts.
'Search' only works for parts in the library. Strangely, it starts the search before I have finished typing the name of the part and blanks the entry window.

[codeboy2k]

GIT ... all other version control systems are obsolete. DEX I cutting edge, so should be its VCS. Please don't waste time on any other VCS.  ... of course GIT is so cool that it can be used stand alone with anything you want to VC but having it built in would be nice. I've already submitted a feature request.

I consider myself a git ninja.. but it's not a database, by any stretch of the meaning.

It has no concurrency, it has no search capabilities, it doesn't scale (beyond 100,000 files or so, it gets slow, and to make it searchable you would have to make each part a file).  Then each user would have to clone the database locally, which is not going to be fast.  And changes made by others would not propogate to everyone else, you'd have to schedule a pull and merge.  Of course this can be done behind the scene for the user, but I say it's still not a very good model.

Git is not even very good at being a rudimentary noSQL database.  If you stored data as files, say in JSON or XML, it cannot be logically ANDed , NOT, ORed, or UNIONed with other entries to do meaningful retrievals. You'd have all the parts (as local files) but you'd have to write all the search capabilities.  A purpose built database has that built-in already.

In fact, I think a noSQL database like Mongo, Couch, Redis, or Cassandra  would be a much better database for parts than a relational database would be.  These databases store JSON data, not XML data, and I get the impression that DEX stores parts in XML.  That's unfortunate (these days) but understandable based on the history and age of DEX.   There is an opensource XML datastore called Sedna that runs on Windows, Linux and OS/X and has C, C#, python, ruby, perl etc.. bindings.  It also has an Apache plugin, so even a web interface could be made to access the parts database.  That might be something for the DEX developer to consider.

[tautech]

Is there a way to put a bar over signal/pin names? Like maybe name them "!CS" to display "CS" with a bar over it on screen, just like in datasheets.

You mean like Q or ^--Q ? (ie. not Q)

[Iliya]

Is there a way to put a bar over signal/pin names? Like maybe name them "!CS" to display "CS" with a bar over it on screen, just like in datasheets.

Adding overstrikes to terminal names

To add an overstrike:

Double-click on the terminal and the rename term dialog will appear as shown below.

To overstrike a section of text first selected it and click the top right button.
You can start an overstrike section by clicking on the top right button. To end the overstrike section click on the bottom right button.
An alternative is to change the symbol terminal to a dot symbol terminal. Use the properties panel to do this.
Often you will see a symbol terminal that has two or more different functions such as terminal 3 above. So you could overstrike one or more subsections of the terminal name.

There are loads of other things you can change using the symbol terminal's property panel, see below.

Symbol terminal names can be multi-line such as terminal 4 shown above. You can also change the font for instance terminal  4 has a bold font and the color has been changed to blue.

[rsjsouza]

Haven't been able to change the split symbols into any other shape (you don't get the bare connection circles for pins after the rectangle deletion). It also looks like the split can only be saved as a design, not a part. Maybe Iliya can expand on this.

I couldn't do this as well, unfortunately.

The 'Designs' tree behaves strangely. Rename doesn't work and a new design can only be saved under existing master folders: amplifiers, Oscillators, Power Supples (SIC) and Spice.

You mean the examples amplifier, arduino, CPU diagram, etc? I wonder if the renaming and creation issue is because the designs are located in the installation directory of DEX - UAC protects these areas and prevents any unauthorized access to them.

'Search' only works for parts in the library. Strangely, it starts the search before I have finished typing the name of the part and blanks the entry window.

This is the same behaviour as free_electron and I mentioned before. I gave up on search at this point, as it locked DEX during search. I personally dislike the "search as you type" feature (a similar behaviour as google.com), as DEX would lock up on searching even if I made a typo and wanted to correct it. I will file a wish list to improve search and (perhaps) remove the "search as you type".

[Iliya]

Haven't been able to change the split symbols into any other shape (you don't get the bare connection circles for pins after the rectangle deletion). It also looks like the split can only be saved as a design, not a part. Maybe Iliya can expand on this.

I couldn't do this as well, unfortunately.

How to customise a symbol with a symbol border placed in a project

1.   Sub pick the symbol border by holding down either the control of the old key and clicking on it.
2.   With the symbol border selected, deleted it by pressing the del key.
3.   Now add your graphics either by dragging graphics from the library or adding your own graphic shapes.
4.   Edit the terminals, sheet type, visibility etc.
5.   Now select all the graphics and the terminals including the reference designator and value by dragging a selection window around the objects.
6.   Right click and select group. This adds all the graphics into the symbol.

That’s it done.

[Wytnucls]

We know the procedure Iliya. It didn't work with the split symbols taken individually. If both borders are deleted, then the circle connections magically reappear on both symbols. I guess that's fine then.

[Iliya]

We know the procedure Iliya. It didn't work with the split symbols taken individually. If both borders are deleted, then the circle connections magically reappear on both symbols. I guess that's fine then.

I just checked it and it works for me. Remember to sub pick the symbol border and then deleted.

[mstevens]

GIT ... all other version control systems are obsolete. DEX I cutting edge, so should be its VCS. Please don't waste time on any other VCS.  ... of course GIT is so cool that it can be used stand alone with anything you want to VC but having it built in would be nice. I've already submitted a feature request.

I consider myself a git ninja.. but it's not a database, by any stretch of the meaning.

It has no concurrency, it has no search capabilities, it doesn't scale (beyond 100,000 files or so, it gets slow, and to make it searchable you would have to make each part a file).  Then each user would have to clone the database locally, which is not going to be fast.  And changes made by others would not propogate to everyone else, you'd have to schedule a pull and merge.  Of course this can be done behind the scene for the user, but I say it's still not a very good model.

Git is not even very good at being a rudimentary noSQL database.  If you stored data as files, say in JSON or XML, it cannot be logically ANDed , NOT, ORed, or UNIONed with other entries to do meaningful retrievals. You'd have all the parts (as local files) but you'd have to write all the search capabilities.  A purpose built database has that built-in already.

I never advocated GIT for DB, only for Version Control (VC).

[codeboy2k]

I never advocated GIT for DB, only for Version Control (VC).

Ah, my mistake for jumping the gun then, sorry about that 

However, how would you separate the two? assuming a DB was chosen, how would you version parts with git if they are in the DB?

Or are you saying use git for versioning the schematic and pcb files (I agree !) and stick with a db for the parts database?

[Dave Turner]

Ilya

Do you have any plans to release a version for Linux? I'd like to try DEX but it would need to be native - not via Wine.

Regards.

[Wytnucls]

We know the procedure Iliya. It didn't work with the split symbols taken individually. If both borders are deleted, then the circle connections magically reappear on both symbols. I guess that's fine then.

I just checked it and it works for me. Remember to sub pick the symbol border and then deleted.

This is the behavior:
If I delete only one border of a split part, then I get no electrical connections on the bare symbol.
If I delete both borders, then I get the electrical connections back. But now I need to rebuild U1-1, which a pain.

Update: Works fine now, after Ilyia's software tweak.

[jd]

Ilya

Do you have any plans to release a version for Linux? I'd like to try DEX but it would need to be native - not via Wine.

Regards.

It is written in C# if I recall correctly. Microsoft seem to want to support .net on linux(!)

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AnnouncingNET2015NETasOpenSourceNETonMacandLinuxandVisualStudioCommunity.aspx

So perhaps it is not impossible.

[Iliya]

Linux and MAC

There is absolutely no intention of doing a native code version of DEX for either LINUX or Mac. DEX is written in C#, C++11 and C++/CLI. 

With the new .NET for both LINUX and Mac you will be able to run DEX as a native code application. The NET CLR will compile DEX to native code.

I know some people hate Microsoft and insist they will never install .NET. But the fact is, on most machines now .NET is already installed.

I didn’t do a version of AutoTRAX that run on both LINUX and Mac. It was written in C++ using QT. But there never was a significant market to justify it and so it was mothballed.

Active3D is written in C++ using QT and potentially could run natively on both LINUX and Mac, but I’ve not built versions for either.

[Iliya]

We know the procedure Iliya. It didn't work with the split symbols taken individually. If both borders are deleted, then the circle connections magically reappear on both symbols. I guess that's fine then.

I just checked it and it works for me. Remember to sub pick the symbol border and then deleted.

This is the behavior:
If I delete only one border of a split part, then I get no electrical connections on the bare symbol.
If I delete both borders, then I get the electrical connections back. But now I need to rebuild U1-1, which a pain.

The latest version will fix your problems and all terminals will appear as dots terminals. I have also improved adding the selected part to the library. It works fine, even for multi-symbol parts.

[Iliya]

I never advocated GIT for DB, only for Version Control (VC).

Ah, my mistake for jumping the gun then, sorry about that 

However, how would you separate the two? assuming a DB was chosen, how would you version parts with git if they are in the DB?

Or are you saying use git for versioning the schematic and pcb files (I agree !) and stick with a db for the parts database?

Restoring Previous Designs

By default DEX saves a copy of EVERY change you make to your project. These are saves in a directory called XXX.backup where XXX is the full path name of your project.

[free_electron]

My two cents on version control (from the perspective of a pcb designer, i was on a panel about this couple of years ago)

1) version control is good
2) version control must be able to show differences between versions. Either textually and or graphically. For example : R3 changed value , c2 changed footprint, s1 was deleted. Q 4 was added. typically cad tools create ECO files to track this. They should be 'absorbed' into vc everytime a commit happens.
3) upon commit : allow to enter textual notes. The vc viewer shows the notes during browse

4) the vc backend must not interfere with the design process. It has to be transparent. What does this mean:
- it has to work off line and on line. Meaning : checkout to local storage, work , check in.
- locking mechanism to bar others from working on a file
- absolutely no external control windows required (there can be external ones, but there MUST be one inside the cad package). The vc must be driven from the cad menu toolbars. Just like you can do 'file-save' in the cad program you can do 'file-commit' and 'file-checkout' and update, and refresh and browse the repo.

It is ok to have an external control window for user settings / permissions  and admin tasks, but the basic operations (checkin checkout ,refresh,, lock unlock) must be handled through the cad program

5) the vc 'host' needs to be installed by the cad program. We dont want to deal with it, we do t want to configure it.  During install of the cad software show a me u :
Use version control ?  Yes
Where do you want the local repository ? There
Where is the central repository ? There
Username ?
Password ?

Done

6) no cloud (or at least the option to toggle cloud or self hosted on a file server under my control.! I may not want my design files 'out there'. If i am contracted by a company to do some design work for them they mahve clauses blocking cloud storage. So i need to be able to connect to cloud or local storage. (This could be as simple as a shared drive on a computer, or a small NAS . Nas boxes are 100$ these days. Mount as drive letter , create folder , create vc trunk. Done.

And here is the big kicker:
If a real piece of vc software is needed : it must come with the cad program. We do not want to end up in 'version hell'. Version x of the cad program only works with version y of the vc. Version y of the vc is dependent on toolkit z ..

It is hell trying to hunt down everything needed to install it. Then all of a sudden there is an update of the vc and that breaks the cad program.  We dont want that.

The vc is deployed at installation of the cad program , or the cad manufacturer must host the installers , clearly marked, what version of the cad they work with.



-personal note-

I have been using SVN for a while now and it works pretty well. I uses tortoisesvn to create a trunk in a folder on one of my NAS boxes. SVN can use both local or remote store. So in that aspect it is great.
People may scoff that SVN is old and doesnt offer many functionality , but it has the base pinned down. Checkin checkout locking and refresh is really all that is needed. We are not dealing with sourcecode here. We dont need browsers or editors. Only the cad software can visualise the files anyway. So the cad software has to deal with showing the diffs graphically.

[Iliya]

Double-click on the terminal and the rename term dialog will appear as shown below.

Thanks Iliya, it takes some getting used to remembering that things like double clicking stuff gets you another dialogue in many cases. It's an issue in a lot of apps, especially mobile apps where users always forget to try long pressing stuff. I'll remember to try it on everything now

context sensitive floating properties dialog

Added new context sensitive floating properties dialog for selected object. If you select an object then a properties dialog will appear showing editors suitable for the selected object. If no object is selected then the floating dialog will be hidden. If you close the floating dialog using the close button at the top right of the dialog then the dialog will not appear again. To make it automatically reappear right click in the viewport and select show-> mini properties panel.

This should make it easier to change things.

[Iliya]

My two cents on version control (from the perspective of a pcb designer, i was on a panel about this couple of years ago)

1) version control is good
2) version control must be able to show differences between versions. Either textually and or graphically. For example : R3 changed value , c2 changed footprint, s1 was deleted. Q 4 was added. typically cad tools create ECO files to track this. They should be 'absorbed' into vc everytime a commit happens.
3) upon commit : allow to enter textual notes. The vc viewer shows the notes during browse

4) the vc backend must not interfere with the design process. It has to be transparent. What does this mean:
- it has to work off line and on line. Meaning : checkout to local storage, work , check in.
- locking mechanism to bar others from working on a file
- absolutely no external control windows required (there can be external ones, but there MUST be one inside the cad package). The vc must be driven from the cad menu toolbars. Just like you can do 'file-save' in the cad program you can do 'file-commit' and 'file-checkout' and update, and refresh and browse the repo.

It is ok to have an external control window for user settings / permissions  and admin tasks, but the basic operations (checkin checkout ,refresh,, lock unlock) must be handled through the cad program

5) the vc 'host' needs to be installed by the cad program. We dont want to deal with it, we do t want to configure it.  During install of the cad software show a me u :
Use version control ?  Yes
Where do you want the local repository ? There
Where is the central repository ? There
Username ?
Password ?

Done

6) no cloud (or at least the option to toggle cloud or self hosted on a file server under my control.! I may not want my design files 'out there'. If i am contracted by a company to do some design work for them they mahve clauses blocking cloud storage. So i need to be able to connect to cloud or local storage. (This could be as simple as a shared drive on a computer, or a small NAS . Nas boxes are 100$ these days. Mount as drive letter , create folder , create vc trunk. Done.

And here is the big kicker:
If a real piece of vc software is needed : it must come with the cad program. We do not want to end up in 'version hell'. Version x of the cad program only works with version y of the vc. Version y of the vc is dependent on toolkit z ..

It is hell trying to hunt down everything needed to install it. Then all of a sudden there is an update of the vc and that breaks the cad program.  We dont want that.

The vc is deployed at installation of the cad program , or the cad manufacturer must host the installers , clearly marked, what version of the cad they work with.



-personal note-

I have been using SVN for a while now and it works pretty well. I uses tortoisesvn to create a trunk in a folder on one of my NAS boxes. SVN can use both local or remote store. So in that aspect it is great.
People may scoff that SVN is old and doesnt offer many functionality , but it has the base pinned down. Checkin checkout locking and refresh is really all that is needed. We are not dealing with sourcecode here. We dont need browsers or editors. Only the cad software can visualise the files anyway. So the cad software has to deal with showing the diffs graphically.

Here is a diagram of the AutoTRAX data.

 I created the diagram above using DEX. Below you will see the PDF generated by DEX which also includes the  DEX project file.

[logic10]

Iliya,

Please check the attach picture for some schematic issues.

Thanks.

[Iliya]

Iliya,

Please check the attach picture for some schematic issues.

Thanks.

Can you please use the DEX bug reporter, you can attach the project.

[Iliya]

Iliya,

Please check the attach picture for some schematic issues.

Thanks.

I don't know how you managed to get the wires like that. 
However, I quickly fixed it by selecting Edit->Rewire>all. You could also rewire selected, move one of wires etc.

[free_electron]

Double-click on the terminal and the rename term dialog will appear as shown below.

Thanks Iliya, it takes some getting used to remembering that things like double clicking stuff gets you another dialogue in many cases. It's an issue in a lot of apps, especially mobile apps where users always forget to try long pressing stuff. I'll remember to try it on everything now

context sensitive floating properties dialog

Added new context sensitive floating properties dialog for selected object. If you select an object then a properties dialog will appear showing editors suitable for the selected object. If no object is selected then the floating dialog will be hidden. If you close the floating dialog using the close button at the top right of the dialog then the dialog will not appear again. To make it automatically reappear right click in the viewport and select show-> mini properties panel.

This should make it easier to change things.