IMHO the library management in LibrePCB is what it pretends to be: totally usable as a backbone of a EDA system… very nice.
This is something not all EDA packages can claim.
Last week I’ve spent a lot of time with LibrePCB and here my current gripes:
-
Library: Both UI categories (component and package) should be treeviews not listviews. It should be made visible that a category is not a root category, but a child category. As it is now it is too confusing (am I the only one?). I solved this (for me) by only creating root categories in my library: “Integrated Circuits - Analog”, “Integrated Circuits - Digital”, etc. but a treeview would probably make more sense in the long run.
-
Schematic: Placing a component with 2 symbols (like a dual op-amp) is ok, but if the B-part is known to not be used at the beginning and deleted, there is no way to add it later. (at least I could not find a possibility with the current UI). The editor already knows if a B part is missing as the ERC says: “Unplaced gate ‘U1:B’”. A double click on the message will open a message dialog that says: “The optional gate ‘B’ of ‘U1’ is not added to the schematic.” Why not add another button next to the OK button to allow adding the missing gate?
-
Schematic: apperantly, changing a symbol with another is only possible with deleting the one already placed, which deletes all wired segments connected to the symbol. This means that the replacement symbol needs to be manually reconnected again, which is really annoying. Imagine replacing a microcontroller with 144 pins…
-
Board: trace segments stay single trace segments, even if they could be automatically replaced with a single straight line. In other words, they are not automatically converted into one segment. Found a work around for this: select a trace segment and use the keyboard arrow keys to let a segment grow and “consume” the other segments. Very cumbersome.
But it shows, that the functionality is already there, it just needs to be automated.
Also, some food for thought:
Board: having the 3D view next (on the right side) to the 2D view is unusual, but not in the way, and actually pretty neat. So I started thinking if it would increase productivity if the same could be done with the schematic appearing on the left side of the 2D view of the board. Reason, I’m constantly switching back and forth between schematic and board, because the PCB Layout depends closely on the circuitry (no matter what type of circuit it is, high speed digital or analog audio). On the flip-side, not sure how my suggestion will pan-out when the schematic editor gets a simulator… there is so much to show…
Another thing would be general usability: please consider to mimic LTSpice’s mouse/touchpad menu driven concept, IMHO it’s one of the easiest to use and makes a lot of fun using it. Reminds me of the old DOS/UNIX EDA programs that had everything at “your fingertips”. As it is now, LibrePCB’s usability is okay, but not great. Granted, KiCAD is worse (and most professional EDA programs are even worse than KiCAD) but LTSpice’s approach is even better.
Something that could be very nice is real-time ERC/DRC:
Board: As it is now, I can draw a trace too close to another one or even on top of it, the program will allow it.
The last thing would be to add info to the shortcut sheet what some icons mean as they are not familiar to me (a diagonal arrow would be one (
) and this one (⇥). I have a MacBook Pro MAX with no additional keyboard.
Thanks for reading.
BTW: Thank you for releasing version 1.1.0 today.
sparky
LibrePCB is getting better step by step…