Non-modal footprint generator / remember dialog units

Upverter Support Parts and Libraries
#1

the footprint generator is great, but the main issue i see with it right now is that before you click ‘generate’ you don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, and after you click ‘generate’ there’s no way to go back and tweak the settings - you have to delete and start from scratch.

it would be great if you could make the generator dialog non-modal and movable and have it automatically generate the footprint every time you change a setting. this way you’d be able to see the result on the design surface, move it around (although probably not edit it directly in the design), tweak the values in the generator dialog and then once you’re happy with it, commit the changes which would make the parts of the footprint editable on the design surface.

barring that, at least remember the previous settings of the footprint generator dialog so we don’t have to type in all those damn numbers every time.

or bring back the octopart import.

#2

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us. I wanted to highlight few things:

  1. Editing an existing footprint - You can tweak the existing settings by clicking on the ‘Footprint Generator’ icon on the lefthand toolbar (in component editor). This way you don’t have to delete and start from scratch. If you were unable to this, then it might be due to a minor service interruption (2 mins) that occurred today at 12:36PM. If you are still having trouble with this, please let me know.

  2. Making the generator movable and non-modal - Our product team is continuously working on making Upverter the best PCB design tool and we will certainly take the point you have raised into consideration when we discuss about feature requests.

Yashwanth

#3

Yes, sorry i was confused. it seems as though it did keep most of the settings, but it had reverted back to ‘mil’ from ‘mm’ so all the numbers in the fields were different.

i guess my suggestion would be to also remember the units setting between activations of that dialog.

#4

Dialogs take their initial units from the grid size. So if your grid size in the footprint editor is in mils, then dialogs will initially open with their units as mils.

The grid size is show in the bottom right of the footprint editor. Clicking on the grid size will pop up a list of common grid sizes that you can choose from, and if none of those are what you’re looking for, there is also “Custom Grid” option.

#5

OK. I guess that makes sense. Although I still think that my action should override the default, and the setting in the dialog should be preserved (regardless of the grid setting).