Andy: Is there any way to see what has been entered as top-5 issues on the website? Looking at a related issue that somebody else has entered can spur the memory of even an "old fart" like myself. Personally, I would rather see some discussion throughout the year, and leaving some kind of Top-5 entry list open on the web all year so you don't have a chance to forget that great enhancement you thought of last October but can't remember now :) -- George Patrick Tektronix, Inc. Central Engineering, PCB Design Group P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-512 Beaverton, OR 97077-0001 Phone: 503-627-5272 Fax: 503-627-5587 <http://www.tektronix.com/> http://www.tektronix.com <http://www.pcb-designer.com/> http://www.pcb-designer.com It's my opinion, not Tektronix' -----Original Message----- From: Andy_Kulik@xxxxxxx [mailto:Andy_Kulik@xxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 05:40 To: icu-pcb-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [PCB_FORUM] Re: ICU2004 - PCB Top 5 Issue's Hello Suresh, please submit your issues for this years Top 5 Voting at the following website. http://www.cadenceusers.org/sigs/pcb/pcbIssuesSubmit2004.html The link to the submittal page is at the bottom. Sending it to the forum is a great idea, but will not get them on the voting list. Thanks Andy sureshbabu Sent by: 06/24/2004 05:05 AM Please respond to icu-pcb-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To "ICU Forum" <icu-pcb-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> cc Subject [PCB_FORUM] Re: ICU2004 - PCB Top 5 Issue's ConceptHDL: Zoom-In and Zoom outs: The Middle mouse button should be made extensively useful for Zoom-in and Zoom out of the Work area. The strokes 'z' present now are sometimes very clumsy to be used. Searchable PDF Outputs and more legible texts: The text in PDFs Output on Windows platform should be searchable. Many customers require that they search to a particular Reference Designator but the output is only graphical. And also the pages output are much denser and zoom-in and zoom-outs in Acrobat are very slow even when a nominal 300dpi resolution is used. Sometimes when a 6-page Schematic is output with 300dpi resolution one sheet in the set has all the text and graphics appearing blurred even when the Text and line width settings in all the pages are set to the same size. Importing graphics from external files: Graphics such as customer logo should be made easily importable from external files such as DXF, BMP, etc into Concept Schematic and also into the Symbol Editor. Creating all the graphics using Concept wire entities is not user-friendly. Or rather than this the ability to import the bit-maps, jpegs and gif files as raster images into the tool (As in AutoCAD) and allowing them to be resized and directly printable will be more useful. Capture: Pin-numbers and Pin-names derived from External Tools... METHOD1: There should be someway of deriving the Pin-numbers from the Allegro Footprint as it is present in ConceptHDL. The present method in Capture requires the user to type both Pin-numbers and Pin-names for each and every pin and the whole process is cumbersome with the Edit Properties dialog for a part with a large Pin-count. METHOD2: Or an Alternate method might be...The Edit properties dialog should accept a column Input from any External Spreadsheet editor for the Pin-names and Pin-numbers. That is the buffer storing the values should be MORE OPEN, NOT HIDING what it has copied. For Example, A list such as TRING_01_1 TTIP_02_0 SDA SCL Should be easily readable from a column of any external Spreadsheet.(like Excel) The present Edit properties dialog allows a single cell to be copied to another cell within the dialog which is not sufficient. Allegro: Layer Stackup Editing The Cross-section dialog is at present not too much friendly towards Adding, removing Layers and Swapping Layers. Particularly when the Layer count needs to be brought down from say 8 layers to 6 Layers from a board already containing data in all the layers, Allegro requires all the data in those extra layers be removed before the those layers are removed. When the user has already expoted the contents of the two extra before-hand as Sub-drawings, having the user delete the data in those layers is tiresome. And also there should be some option to Add or delete Layers in a group, that is more than one layer at a time. X-net in Constraint Manager: For the Constraint Manager to identify 2 or 3 net paths as X-net, Allegro (Design Expert) requires the user to use the Setup Advisor dialog, which requires to configure the device model of the Component falling in the Netpath for this purpose. This is totally time-consuming and unnecessary for a User who does not want any simulation or Analysis to be done on his design. The user only wants the constraint manager to identify a group of Nets as X-nets just for the purpose of checking the matched length criteria with another X-net. So there should be some DIRECT WAY of setting an X-Net in Allegro. And this X-net when selected using the Show Element dialog should show the total length and the constituents of each X-net. Anti-etch lines for Negative planes: The Anti-etch lines drawn for a particular Subclass(Ex.ANTIETCH/PWR1) as Allegro line entities should be easily slidable as done for the Clines using Slide commmand (SHIFT+F6). The present method requires the user to delete or cut the line and modify it as he wishes which is time-consuming. DRC Violations for Antietch lines over Antipads: The Anti-etch lines drawn when working with Negative planes create a violation with the Antipads present on the Pin and via subclasses. Actually this should not be flagged as an error since the User draws Anti-etch lines over Anti-pads just to avoid scrapping off the Copper on the planes. And flagging an error on this is not good. No DRC at required areas: False DRC errors should have some way of making the tool not report them as errors. Draft view for any Entity: Toggling the Fill ON and OFF on the Clines, Shapes, lines and Text should be enabled. (Ex. As in ProtelDXP) File open: The Allegro File menu should remember a list of 4 or 5 (Or as the user sets it up in the User preferences dialog) recently opened .BRD/.DRA/.MCM files as other Packages on the Windows platform do. Specctra: ESC Key and Specctra stops Zooms Specctra stops Zoom-in and zoom-outs when the Escape Key is pressed inadvertently. This should be checked. Signal Shield parameters encoded Setting the SHIELD_TYPE and SHIELD_NET parameters in Allegro or in the Front-end Schematic Editor and invoking Specctra causes the values set for these properties to be encoded in the DO file that Allegro writes to Specctra. They are written as some non-readble characters, which Specctra fails to interpret. The user then must set them again in Specctra. Regards, Suresh Dear PCB Forum Member, The International Cadence Users Group PCB SIG is now soliciting input for this years PCB Top issues. Now is your chance to influence the functionality of the Cadence PCB products. This year we are doing things a little differently than previous years by having individual Top Five issue lists for the following Allegro Platform products: Concept HDL, Capture/CIS, Allegro, APD, SpecctraQuest/SigXP/CM and Specctra. The schedule will be as follows: Input Begins: June 22, 2004 Input Ends: July 19, 2004 Top-5 Voting Begins: July 26, 2004 Voting Ends: August 6, 2004 Results Published: TBD Cadence's response to the Top-5 Issues will be shown as a presentation at the 2004 International Cadence Usergroup Conference and shortly there after the responses will be posted at <http://www.cadenceusers.org/> http://www.cadenceusers.org. Only the responses, and not the entire presentation will be posted. Please visit the following link to submit issues for this years Top 5 voting. http://www.cadenceusers.org/sigs/pcb/pcbIssuesSubmit2004.html In addition please checkout our website for Conference Updates, Schedule and Registration Specials We are looking forward to hear from you ICU PCB SIG