Seetrax XL Designer Version 1.75 30th March 2010 ------------------------------------------------- Changed in release 75 --------------------- Artwork checker : o When a power net was used simultaneously on more than one power plane layer, the artwork checker was reporting 'interplane shorts' for drill holes that correctly interconnected the layers. o The checker will now report parts that are unplaced or are placed outside of the board profile. Changed in release 74 (1st March 2010) --------------------- Artwork editor : o When a split powerplane was generated, the subnet boundary polygons were not being tagged with the correct net identity. This caused them not to be recognised by the Specctra/Electra autorouter export function. (To correct this problem on affected designs, use the powerplane 'Generate' button to recreate each power plane layer) Changed in release 73 (22nd February 2010) --------------------- Artwork editor : o A crash occurred on entering the powerplane generation mode if any net contained a reference to a non existent part pin. Circuit schematic editor : o Fixup crash at schematic load time when allocation data was bad. Changed in release 72 (17th February 2010) --------------------- Artwork editor : o Reimplementation and simplification of the powerplane generation mode. It is now possible for a power net to be used simultaneously on more than one power plane layer. However, the artwork checker currently reports such usage as 'interplane shorts'. This problem will be fixed in the next release. Split power plane net selection is now performed in the Configuration-> Layer Assignments and Ordering dialog in the Navigator pane. Split power plane subnet polygons are now retained with the design, so it is no longer necessary to import them from the powerplane layer to regenerate a powerplane. The import function is retained for compatibility with existing design files. The user guide included with this release still refers to the previous powerplanes implementation. An updated guide will be included in the next software release. NB: Designs saved with this version of XLDesigner are not compatible with, and cannot be loaded into earlier releases of the software. Changed in release 71 (3rd December 2009) --------------------- Circuit schematic editor : o When old 'flat schematic editor' circuits were converted for use in the hierarchical schematic editor, some connections were not correctly processed. The hierarchical editor has a strict rule that only 'ednpoints' of connection wires are permitted to be attached to symbol terminals and connection 'blobs'. Some converted schematics were not complying with this requirement, and after subsequent editing of the schematic, internal inconsistencies occurred which resulted in a program crash or incorrect netlist compilation results. This bugfix corrects the incorrect initial conversion, and also fixes up the inconsistencies that have resulted from editing of the affected schematics. Changed in release 70 (9th November 2009) --------------------- Artwork editor : o After a region delete operation had been performed, the Mroute->RipUp and Mroute->Corner operations would cause a crash. o A crash occured after using the silk screen generator to add outline free copper to the artwork. o Part renumbering and gate/pin swap history will now be logged into the 'renumber' file in the design log files folder. o Network changes made with the Tools->Network commands will now be logged into the 'netmods' file in the design log files folder. o A crash could occur when you moved or flipped a part having pre-routed copper features defined in the outline. Outline editor : o Added Copper->Key Move Pad command. o Added Copper->Change Pad Style/Size command. o When alternating between outline mask editing and free copper editing, the free copper functions became confused as to which layer to enter features into. o Pad style and size controls have been added to the toolbar. When pad style/size is changed in the toolbar, the navigator and browser windows will update to display the selected pad. Pads may also be selected directly from the navigator (as before) and the outline editor toolbar controls will update accordingly. Circuit schematic editor : o When using the region commands, the region rectangle corners and move/copy destination will now always snap to grid/half grid even if "Snap to Grid" is disabled in the Grid menu. o When a flat schematic was converted, the associated parts did not have their pin swap rules imported. o When a flat schematic was converted, instantiated part symbols that were members of a part with >1 available instance were not tagged with the correct sub-instance reference if 'gate' (part element) swapping had been performed within the old flat circuit editor. o If two wires were butted end-to-end on a flat schematic with no junction blob or part terminal at their join point, then connectivity was not preserved through the wire in the converted schematic. (Lloyd research 'Nets not being joined by signal name' bug report) General system : o Added "Edit Datasheet Addresses" to the navigator top level schematic folder right-click menu. This permits bulk assignment of datasheet addresses to each schematic part/split-part. o Enabled the "Show Datasheet" option in the right-click navigator menu associated with schematic parts. Please note the command will only be active for parts that have the datasheet address attribute defined. o Added "Purge Unused Outlines" commands to the right-click navigator menu associated with outlines. o Enabled the "Purge Unused Blocks" commands in the navigator top level schematic folder right-click menu. o When trying to delete custom pads from the pad library, a "dependency checks not coded" error was displayed. o Reference guide updated. Changed in release 69 (11th September 2009) --------------------- Artwork editor : o If you generated a power plane, then left the power plane tools menu and selected 'Undo', a crash would occur. o After using 'Redo', all entries vanished from the part placement tray and you had to exit and restart the program to recover them. o When an 'Undo' operation caused a net or part of a net to return to an unrouted status, then all signal names vanished from the net list. Circuit Schematic : o Added Undo/Redo capability. Design Outputs : o Added HP-GL pen plotter output filters. General system : o Reference guide updated. Changed in release 68 (29th June 2009) --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o If a block I/O symbol was deleted from a schematic sheet, and the corresponding symbol for the schematic was instantiated on other schematics in the design, and the pin being deleted was connected on those other schematics, then an internal inconsistency occured which resulted in compilation errors. When you delete an I/O pin, the system will now warn you if that pin is connected elsewhere in the design hierarchy. If you continue to delete the pin, the attached connections will now become correctly deassociated with the pin. o When a schematic compilation caused part outlines to be fetched from the master outline library, the outline pad dimensions were not being correctly merged from the master library into the design library. o It is now possible to have block names with / in them. eg. I/O Please note that designed created with such names will not load into earlier versions of XL Designer. Changed in release 67 (12th June 2009) --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o When entries were deleted from the schematic part folders within a design, those deleted part names would appear as empty user blocks if the design were opened in RangerXL. XL Designer was not affected by this problem. o When a schematic part or userblock was fetched into a design from a master library or another design, the type of the block in the source library was inadvertantly set as 'split part'. If the source library or design were subsequently edited and saved, then the block became stored as a split part regardless of its correct type. The part entered into the destination design received the correct block type. To assist in correcting the wrong block type on designs and libraries affected by this bug, a command "Change Block Type" menu has been added to the 'right-click' context menu that is displayed when you right click on a schematic split part in the navigator. Choose the appropriate submenu entry to alter the selected split part to be a userblock, part, primitive or blockio symbol. After changing a block's type in this way, the design should be saved, closed and reopened in order for the parts to appear in their correct navigator folders. NB: The "Change Block Type" menu is not normally visible, as it is only intended for recovery of corrupted designs. To enable the menu, enter the File->System Setup dialog and check the "Enable Schematic Block Type Change" box. Please note that XL Designer always starts with this feature disabled. (ie. the enable checkbox state is not remembered) o Back compatibility note: When a design containing schematic split parts is opened in Ranger XL, the split parts will appear in the 'parts' section of the parts selector together with all the normal parts. Ranger XL does not differentiate between split/non-split parts in its parts browser. XL Designer correctly separates them out into their appropriate folders. This has caused some users to believe that XL Designer is wrongly categorising normal parts as split parts. Changed in release 66 --------------------- Artwork editor : o If you right-click on the artwork icon in the navigator, and choose 'open detached', then the artwork will open in a separate window that may be dragged to a second monitor. General system : o 'View->Restore Default Layout' command has been added. This will restore the default visibility and positioning of the navigator, browser and status panes. o Reference manual updated. o IMPORTANT : This product update requires a version 2 license file. Previously issued licenses will require upgrading. (Not relevant for XL Designer Lite version) Changed in release 65 (26th January 2009) --------------------- Bath Scientific test point generator : o A crash was occuring when generating test data for some designs. Artwork editor : o The autoplace, autoroute, copper fill and powerplane modes now contain a back arrow on the toolbar which will return you to manual place/route mode. Netlist editor : o The displayed network 'MinClear' value was not being updated when you changed between inch/metric units. General system : o When the inch/metric hotkeys (normally F9/F10) were used, values were shown incorrectly in certain system dialogs (eg. Artwork editor Parts->Keymove, Outline editor Text->Add, Manual routing parameters dialog, Schematic attribute edit height values) o A crash could occur if you had the artwork and parts list editors both open, and you deleted a part from the parts list when that same part was also in the artwork part placement tray. o Corrected a roundoff error when points were being snapped to a metric grid. (This error had been observed when checking the coordinates of profile lines using the profile numeric editor) o The system should not have allowed an outline to be renamed when the outline is referenced in the parts list. o Added 'Delete all Parts & Nets' action to the right-click menu for the navigator Parts folder. o Added 'Delete all Nets' action to the right-click menu for the navigator Nets folder. Changed in release 64 (11th December 2008) --------------------- Artwork editor : o When a design uses library pads or buried vias, an internal hidden table is created to map drill sizes required for these pads into a size code that can be applied to power plane heat reliefs and anti pads. An internal error in the management of this table resulted in power plane features being created with the wrong drill size associated with their size code. This resulted in anti pads and heat reliefs around buried via and library pad drill holes begin generated with the wrong dimensions. Designs affected by this problem can be recovered by regenerating the power planes. Changed in release 63 (5th December 2008) --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Find->Signal Name was displaying an 'Internal Error' dialog if a search was attempted on a signal name that did not exist on the schematics. o If you began entry of a connection, and terminated the insert mode by selecting another menu operation (instead of clicking on a symbol terminal,or dropping the connection with the right mouse button), then a crash would occur. Outline Editor : o While a component outline was open for editing, every design save operation could cause a shift of the component outline and autoplacer footprint box positions if the 'Outline->Set Outline Datum' command had been used. General system : o A crash could occur when a design was closed. Changed in release 62 (24th November 2008) --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Circuit schematic undo/redo operations have been temporarily disabled. They will be re-enabled as soon as their defective operation has been corrected. o Crash occurred if you used 'Terminals->Assign Names' and edited a terminal name that was > 16 characters long. Outline Editor & Artwork Editor : o The Outline->Corner and SplitBoundary->Corner commands could cause a situation where the line endpoint could not be released. Parts list editor : o When units were toggled between inch/metric, the displayed component position values were displayed incorrectly. Artwork editor : o The artwork checker 'Include copper fill' box should have been checked automatically if the artwork contains copper fill features. Also, if copper fill had been created and then deleted, the artwork checker was warning that the 'Include copper fill' mode was not selected even though the artwork no longer contained filled areas. Changed in release 61 (10th November 2008) --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o When a schematic sheet containing placed power block symbols was open for editing, and the 'paste' operation was used to add extra parts to the schematic parts folder, then a crash could occur. o The 'Find->Signal Name' command did not work correctly. It should now function in a similar manner to the find part and find net commands which present 'previous/next' buttons in the popup balloon window to enable moving through all instances of the signal name. Changed in release 60 (3rd November 2008) --------------------- General system : o Includes updated version of the XL Designer Reference Guide. o Added 'Documentation' folder to design tree. It is now possible to create documentation files which are stored internally within a .rxl design file. To create a documentation file, right click on the 'Documentation' folder within a design, and choose the appropriate file type from the 'New' menu. It is possible for the user to customise the file types that are presented in the 'Documentation->New' menu :- In the \Program Files\Seetrax\XL Designer\ product installation directory, there is now a subdirectory named 'DocTemplates'. The DocTemplates\index.txt file defines all the file extensions and file descriptions that are to appear in the Documentation->New menu. When editing this file, the extension and description fields must be separated by a single tab character. For each file type defined in the index.txt file, if a corresponding file named 'templates.{extension}' is created in the DocTemplates directory, then that file will be used as the initial file content for newly created documentation files. If no template file is created for a file type, then the 'New' file action will create an empty (0 bytes long) file. The documentation file 'Import' action allows any existing file to be added to the documentation folder of the design. Changed in release 59 (13th October 2008) --------------------- Artwork editor : o If Active DRC was enabled, then a crash could occur when trying to insert a point into an unroute. Circuit Schematic : o When Ranger XL designs containing flat schematics were opened, the converter was re-converting the flat schematic to hierarchical mode every time the design was saved and reopened, thereby destroying any subsequent editing of the schematic. o When a flat schematic is automatically converted to hierarchical mode on design opening, a report of the converted schematic pages will be displayed, and a 'flatcircuit_conversion' entry will be created in the design logfiles. General system : o If you used keyboard up/down arrow keys to move through entries in the navigator, then the properties and browser panes were not updated. Changed in release 58 (7th October 2008) --------------------- Artwork editor : o If an unroute was picked up with the Mroute->Move Unroute command, and the operation then cancelled with the right hand mouse button, the unroute was not being redisplayed. An artwork check, job close and reload was needed to make it come back. Outline editor : o It was not possible to use auto pad assign on a bga outline having pads on a 0.5mm pitch as it was incorrectly assigning pads on adjacent rows/columns. General system : o The navigator did not restrict the name length for custom pads, outlines, schematic parts, output tasks and batches, but when the design was saved, the names were truncated to the various internal system limits. (Custom pad and outline names were truncated at 16 characters. Schematic parts, output tasks and batches were truncated at 20 characters). The navigator will now prevent the entry of element names longer than the internal system limits. o The maximum permitted name length for output tasks and output batches has been raised from 20 characters to 80 characters. NB: If designs are created with output task/batch names > 20 characters, and then loaded into earlier versions of XL Designer, the names will again be truncated to 20 characters. o The File->Print command in the sizes table editor did not work. Changed in release 57 (2nd October 2008) --------------------- Artwork editor : o If a design contained nets with single nodes, and any one of those nodes were shorted to another net, then the artwork checker was reporting all the single node nets as being shorted together. General system : o Added preliminary reference manual (schematic editor only at the moment) to the help menu. Electra router compatibility : o The electra router interface was incompatible with the command syntax requirements of the current series 2 routers. An option has been added to the Electra router installation configuration dialog to allow select of version 1 or version 2 routers. Changed in release 56 (8th September 2008) --------------------- General system : o After the 'ALT' key had been pressed, defined function keys stopped working in the graphical editors. Please note that if ALT is pressed and no subsequent Windows menu action is selected by keystroke, then it will be necessary to hit ALT a second time to cancel its action and re-enable operation of the function keys in the editors. o If a design .rxl file was opened directly from a Windows Explorer window, then the Outputs folder did not appear. Parts list editor : o Parts that were added to the list with "Repeat Part" could not be added to the artwork part placement tray. o Clicking on column headers will now sort the parts list by the selected column. Artwork editor : o Pin numbers display did not take into account whether the associated component pad was visible. Circuit Schematic : o The datum point of a bus ripper symbol could not be seen once a connection had been made to it. o If a part contained no terminals, then part allocation data was lost after the design had been saved and reloaded. Design navigator : o Duplicate outline names were being created when using the 'Paste' operation. Specctra & Electra optional autorouters : o Added browse buttons to the router installation configuration dialogs to assist in selection of the work directory and router executable file. o Work directory and router executable file paths were being limited to 55 characters by the configuration dialog. o Circular board profiles were being incorrectly output as octagons. A circular profile will now be interpolated into 128 segments (2 degree steps) Changed in release 55 (1st September 2008) --------------------- General system : o It is now possible to load designs that were created with any previous Ranger product. In the file open dialog, select the appropriate "Files of type" value, and navigate to the appropriate design file or design index file. Circuit Schematic : o If a design is loaded that has an old style flat schematic, then the schematic and its associated device library entries will be converted into design blocks within the hierarchical schematic editor. Please note that there are major differences in the way that "bus" signals were handled in the flat schematic editor and the hierarchical editor. The hierarchical editor uses specially created bus ripper symbols to handle busses, whereas the flat schematic editor indicated busses by setting wires to "bus width". The flat schematic compiler essentially ignored wires set at "bus width", leaving net node grouping by equivalent signal name tags to perform the required connections. The hierarchical editor compiler is unable to operate in this manner, so all imported "bus width" wires are converted to non-electrical features so they cannot be seen by the hierarchical schematic compiler. Some schematics with busses will need some manual editing after loading if it is desired to recompile the schematic to a parts and net list. If recompilation results in errors because multiple signal names are found on a net, then it may be necessary to convert more wire sections to non-electrical mode to hide them from the compiler. A new command : Wires->Flat Circuit Import Assist->Toggle Wire Section To Non Electrical has been added to the schematic editor. This permits a section of a connection to be switched to non electrical mode thereby hiding its connectivity from the compiler. Please note that this function only permits certain wire sections to be converted. Wire sections connecting to component pins and sections which are not the first or last in a wire link cannot be changed. o The system crashed if you deleted a powerpin symbol from a part, or a subsymbol from a split part. Design Outputs : o It was possible to delete an output task from the navigator while the task was open. This resulted in an immediate crash. o The right and bottom print margin was incorrect for outputs to the MS Windows printer. o When an artwork layer was output with pads set as filled/drilled, tracks were being pulled back from the pad datum point. This resulted in tracks not being picked up when parts were moved. Changed in release 54 (18th August 2008) --------------------- Gerber Output : o When the system output arc tracks to a gerber file, they are approximated by a series of straight line segments. The individual segments were calculated to each subtend a fixed 6 degrees of arc around the line being plotted. This worked well in most cases. However, where an arc track is very shallow (huge radius of curvature) this resulted in only one straight line segment being output. The arc approximation algorithm will now generate as many segments as necessary in order that no point on a segment may be more than 0.001" away from the true arc position. o In the sizes table heat relief parameters page, it is possible to enter channel width values that cannot be achieved within the stated drill range for the entered track width and clearance values. When a channel width is too large, it will be observed in the artwork (with pads displayed unfilled) that the heat relief segments appear to turn inside out (they look a bit like bow ties). This does not affect artwork editing but is serious if the job is output to Gerber with this misconfiguration. Artwork output to Gerber (and other targets) will now check for this misconfiguration and raise a warning if detected. General system : o If you created an outline with a comma in its name, the system was crashing when you tried to open the outline. Changed in release 53 (11th August 2008) ---------------------------------------- o The 'Print to File' option for Windows printer outputs did not work. o Copy & Paste were not available in the navigator for output tasks. o Implemented output batch functionality. Artwork editor : o The artwork checker was giving incorrect results for designs containing custom pads shapes. (Customer supplied job "3004-07_11-03.rxl" was wrongly reporting short circuits) Circuit Schematic : o Find->Part was crashing if you entered a part ident that did not exist. o Allocate->ShowFreelist was crashing. o When performing a region copy, bus connections were not being copied with the correct width applied. o Region->Paste command was shown as active even if nothing had been cut/copied. o Region Cut/Copy now works correctly between sheets within the same design. (Features cut/copied in one design cannot be pasted into another design as each design has its own private schematic cut/copy buffer) o Added 'Show Dependencies' action to navigator right-click menu for schematic items. General system : o If a design having an old style flat schematic was saved from within XL Designer, then access to the flat schematic was lost if you attempted to reload the design in Ranger XL. As long as no hierarchical schematic blocks are created in a loaded design, any flat schematic will now remain accessible if the design is saved and reloaded in Ranger XL. If heirarchical blocks are created, or schematic parts copied into the design, then deleting all of them will reinstate access to the flat schematic in Ranger XL. o Navigator Copy/Paste operations involving schematic design sheets or split parts did not work correctly. Changed in release 52 (17th July 2008) -------------------------------------- General system : o The licensing implementation has been improved to allow for the provision of 'schematic only' licenses. Schematic only licenses will only work with this and newer releases of XL Designer. o Newly issued full system XL Designer licenses which are locked with a security key (dongle) will now allow operation of all program sections except artwork when the key is unplugged. With the key unplugged, the artwork editor works in view-only mode. Newly issued licenses having this feature will only work with this and newer releases of XL Designer. Previously issued licenses will continue to work with this version, but will not benefit from the ability to detach the key while retaining partial operation. Profile editor : o "Grid->Select Origin" did not work. Custom pad editor : o "Grid->Select Origin" did not work. o "Grid->Measure Distances" did not work. Changed in release 51 --------------------- General system : o If you selected a net in the navigator pane, and the net had a large number of nodes, then the property pane would take a very long time to draw. (A net with > 500 nodes was taking > 30 seconds) o Navigator "Find in Schematic" for nets was not finding net nodes that had alphanumeric pin references. o Right clicking on navigator standard pad folders now shows an "Open Sizes Table" action. Previously, it was incorrectly showing a "New" which created a custom pad. o Properties pane will now display attributes and power pin information when browsing schematic parts in the navigator. o Clicking on a navigator design parts folder will now cause the properties pane to show a count of the number of placed and unplaced parts in the design. o Clicking on a navigator design nets folder will now cause the properties pane to show a count of the number of power and signal nets in the design. o The navigator Nets folder now uses a different icon for power nets. o Implemented design auto-save. This must be switched on by ticking the option box in the 'File->System Setup' dialog. Please note that auto-save does not save changes that are in progress on master libraries. o The selected system inch/metric units mode now gets preserved across program sessions. o Grid snapping state now gets saved with the design. Also, the state is now stored separately for the artwork/profile, outlines, custom pads and schematic views within the design. Design outputs : o Plot preview was not being shown correctly for some plots (black screen) o When the N/C drill output encountered co-incident drill holes, invalid data was being placed in the drill data file. Artwork editor: o If a directory named c:\temp existed, the artwork checker was creating a file called c:\temp\xldebug.txt Outline editor : o 'Outline->Set Outline Datum' command did not work. o If a design was saved while a component outline was opened for editing, then changes/additions to the outline pins were not saved into the design file. Parts list editor : o Enabled bill of materials output function in the 'View' menu. Bill of materials may now be output in the old "RangerXL" report style, or in a spreadsheet compatible style with selectable field separator. o Enabled 'File' menu 'Save Parts List as Text' action. o Enabled 'File' menu 'Print' action. o 'View->Show Part UIDs' setting will now get remembered between program sessions. o 'Edit->Find Part' has been made case insensitive. Netlist editor : o Enabled 'File' menu 'Save Nets List as Text' action. o Enabled 'File' menu 'Print' action. o Enabled 'Edit->Find Signal Name' action. o Enabled 'Edit->Find Node' action. o Enabled 'Edit->Find Unconnected Pins' action. o Enabled 'View->Show NETUID Codes' and 'View->Show Minimum Clearances' actions. Demonstration version only : o When you load a design that has too many parts or nets for the design size limits of the demonstration version, a warning dialog will be displayed if you attempt to save the truncated design over the original loaded design. Changed in release 50 --------------------- General system : o Clicking parts and nets in the navigator pane did not show the correct properties information in the properties pane. o System can now display multiple popup windows for the navigator "Find in Artwork" and "Find in Schematic" operations. o Popup windows for the "Find in Artwork" and "Find in Schematic" operations for parts/nets now contain buttons that allow you to rapidy go to the identified feature in other views. Also, when an information popup is placed on a circuit schematic symbol, and the symbol is allocated to a part containing multiple elements, the popup will contain buttons to assist in finding other members of the same part. Changed in release 49 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o System was crashing when you dropped parts into the fast parts tray. General system : o If you created a new circuit schematic, then compiled it, then opened the parts or net list editor, there was no correlation between the parts and nets displayed in the navigator pane and their entries in the parts/nets editors. Also, if an artwork was produced, then the navigator "Find in artwork" options did not work. Normal operation was only obtained after saving, closing and reopening the design. o If you added a part to the parts list by using the artwork "Tools->Network->Add Part" function, and then tried to delete the part from the parts list editor, then the system would crash. o Added software reference manual to the Help menu. o Added online check for product updates to the Help menu. o A customer supplied design (BZ821_defekt.rxl) was failing to load because a net had a signal name tag that was missing from the signal name table. Invalid signal name tags now get cancelled on net loadup. The source of the invalid name has yet to be determined. Changed in release 48 --------------------- General system : o Popup information windows (eg. identify part, x/y etc) have been restyled to be "Balloon" type windows. o Navigator "Find in Artwork" is now operational for parts and nets. o Initial implementation of navigator "Find in Schematic". This release only contains limited functionality for finding parts in the schematic, and does not yet work correctly for parts that have multiple elements. Changed in release 47 --------------------- General system : o Added Cadence/CCT Specctra and Konekt Electra optional autorouter interface. (To access optional routers, right click on your artwork icon in the navigator. Optional routers must be enabled in the File->System Setup dialog in order to appear in the artwork icon context menu) Outline Editor : o X/Y readout was not working. Circuit Schematic : o The system was crashing if you tried to place a symbol from a split part that was located in a master library. Changed in release 46 --------------------- General system : o Added profile import from AutoCAD DXF file. o Added artwork import from Gerber file. o Added parts/netlist import from text file. o GenCAD export tool was crashing on supplied customer designs. (The supplied designs had some pad table definitions where the dimensions displayed in the standard pad size editor appeared to be zero, but internally, roundoff error had resulted in a very small non-zero value, causing the pad output algorithm to fail) Changed in release 45 --------------------- Outline Editor : o System was crashing when you closed an outline that had been opened from the master outlines collection. General system : o Added GenCAD 1.4 export tool. o Added Bath Scientific Limited testpoint generator. Changed in release 44 --------------------- Outputs Editor : o "RS 274X (Extended gerber)" text change was missing from the Gerber output non-auto job setup dialog. o Added DXF output filter. o Added output to artwork layer filter. Changed in release 43 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Added wires 0/90 degree lock button to the toolbar, and entry to the wires submenu. o A horizontal scroll bar will now appear in the fast parts tray if the contained text is too wide for the window. o It should have only been possible to select "Bus Pin" type on the toolbar when editing "User Block" and "Block I/O" symbols. Artwork editor : o When entering powerplane mode, the powerplane toolbar would display all powernames that were defined in the power names configuration table, even if the power name did not occur in the design netlist. After entering the powerplane setup dialog, and closing it again, the displayed powername table would reduce to just those power names that appeared in the netlist. This was confusing. o In powerplane mode, if you selected a powername in the toolbar, then entered powerplane setup mode and switched the toolbar selected power name if 'Inactive', then the system would crash after the setup dialog was closed. o The powerplane preview mode did not repaint correctly. (After panning/ zooming, or using the setup dialog, it was necessary to switch preview mode off and on again to restore the correct preview display) o When using 'Text > Move' mode to move a 'URL' text item, the item was not undraw correctly when picked up. Outputs Editor : o In the gerber output configuration dialogs, "Extended gerber" output mode has been renamed to "RS 274X (Extended gerber)" Outline Editor : o If you added, deleted, or moved pads on an outline, then the change was not visible in the artwork until the design had been saved and reloaded. Profile Editor : o The "View > Drill Holes" mode was only switching on/off the display of drill holes, and the part pins were always being displayed. This was different to the behaviour in Ranger XL. Also, the menu entry has been renamed to "View > Part Pins" to agree with its actual functionality. General system : o When new standard pad sizes were defined with the pad sizes editor, the newly entered sizes did not appear in the navigator until the software had been terminated and restarted. o When windows were resized to extreme aspect ratios, full use was not being made of the available drawing area. (eg. Window > Tile Horizontal with several windows open would result in windows that only had partial grid coverage) Changed in release 42 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Implementation of sheet editor Symbol->Power Place mode. o Implementation of 'Region' commands. o Implementation of user defined design extractor o Schematic compiler was causing an "Invalid Argument" error popup to appear. Trying to continue would cause the system to crash. o Power symbols were vanishing from schematic sheets after a part had been placed from a master library. o If a userblock symbol was deleted from a schematic sheet while a view of the design hierarchy was open, the displayed hierarchy was not updated and could cause a crash. o It was not possible to delete parts and user blocks because of warning about "dependency checks not coded" o When a new part was added to the schematic, allocated, then the circuit compiled, artwork silk screen features that had been manually added were being deleted. o EMC attribute tags were not visible, and the system crashed if you tried to apply them. o F4(full) and View > Full was not working o The split part subsymbol swap rules dialog bar global/local selector had no default selection. o The RangerXL product uses a separate data section in the design database to hold gate and pin swapping rules extracted from library part and split parts. XLDesigner derives its swap rules directly from the library members, and does not require and was not generating this separate swap rules database. This resulted in a backward compatability problem when loading XLDesigner created designs in RangerXL. XLDesigner now generates this missing database. o Symbol and pin swap rules setting modes incorrectly showed rule 'circles' on placeable power blocks and power block pins. o Compiler did not correctly insert EMC attributes into extracted parts and nets data. o Reinstated the compilation result viewer. o When connections were inserted onto a blockio symbol pin, the connection would not attach correctly to the pin. (if you picked up the symbol to move it, the connection would stay behind. o Symbol and pin swapping rules should only have been visible for part and split-part type symbols. o It was not possible to specify a typed pin reference to force allocation of a split part symbol to a specific subsymbol within the component. o Pin number assignment did not place a default value in the pin number box. Artwork editor : o Corrected memory corruption in gate/pin swap rules handling. o Gate and pin swap rules were not being handled for schematic split parts. o Parts EMC hilighting mode was not working. o Region > Move/Rotate was not updating unroutes. o Region > Macro Generate and Region > Macro Add were disabled. o User defined via holes were not being displayed. o Amend > Enter Pads did not permit entry of user defined via holes. Custom Pad Editor : o DrillHoles > Delete command did not work. o The drill size value in the toolbar did not work. General system : o Schematic symbols, outlines etc. now get loaded into the navigator window sorted into alphanumeric order. o Component outline names in the navigator now get forced to upper case to be consistent with the parts list editor. Changed in release 41 --------------------- (Release not distributed) Changed in release 40 --------------------- (Release not distributed) Changed in release 39 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Implementation of the fast-parts tray. Artwork editor : o A design that had custom pads in the free copper section of an outline was crashing if the design was saved, then reopened, then attempted to open the artwork editor. Changed in release 38 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Fixed compiler problem with signal names. o Fixed display problem with attribute positions on split part subsymbols. o When a design sheet was renamed, the corresponding symbol entry was not renamed. o Paste buffer was not being cleared at start of a new copy/cut operation. o When editing a symbol outline, line endpoints could not be released after the attributes move command had been used. Changed in release 37 --------------------- Circuit Schematic : o Implementation of schematic parts & split parts editors. o Implementation of hierarchy navigator functions. Changed in release 36 --------------------- Design Outputs : o Added the hierarchical schematic plot filter. Circuit schematic : o Non electrical text strings containing version control markup was not being handled correctly. Changed in release 35 --------------------- General system : o When outlines are imported into a design, and pad/track size code translation is required on import, size code 0 will no longer be allocated to translated features. o If you renamed a circuit schematic library entry, and then moved the main application window without first clicking again on a navigator entry, a crash occurred. o It was not possible to save changes made to the design master libraries. Outline editor : o It was possible to place a pad on an outline when no pad style had been selected from the navigator. A default round pad was being displayed, and it was possible to allocate a pin number to it. However, the resultant outline was unusable, and could cause a crash when trying to add it to the parts list. (System will now beep, and display a prompt on the status bar asking for the selection of a pad style) o When using Region > Copy with pads selected, the system would become unresponsive, and consume memory until a crash occurred. o Copper > Add/Move Corner would not move corners that had been added in copper lines on copper layers. o Copper > Add/Move Corner would not move copper line end points that were not attached to a part pin. Artwork editor : o Tools > Network > Add Part was causing a crash. (Problem introduced at version 1.34) o Tools > Generate Silk Screen caused a crash if you selected insertion of free copper features. Changed in release 34 --------------------- Profile editor: o The system was crashing when trying to add a line feature to the profile in the master profile library. General system : o It was possible to use "Paste" in the navigator window to overwrite a design custom pad, outline, schematic library entry or profile object when that object was open for editing. This resulted in a crash. Component outlines : o When using Copy/Paste to copy outlines between designs and the master outline library, required custom pads were not transferred with the copied outlines. o When outlines were imported to a design from the master library or another design, the size codes of imported pads and line features were not translated if there was a mismatch in the size table configurations between the source and destination. o Outline "families" are now available. To configure families for the outlines in a design, or the master outlines, right click on the top level outline folder in the navigator, then choose "Manage Families" from the context menu. o Bulk editing of outline properties is now available. To invoke the editor, right click on the top level outline folder in the navigator, then choose "Edit Properties" Artwork editor : o "Parts -> Change Outline" command is now available. Parts list editor : o Editing the outline name field for a part that is already placed on the artwork will now have the same editing effect on the artwork as using the artwork editor "Parts -> Change Outline" command. Changed in release 33 --------------------- Outline editor : o System could crash when creating a new outline. o When an outline was opened, the autoplacement footprint was not being checked to ensure that it encircled the pin bounds. o Problems with outline corner/move point and free copper corner commands. o Pad angle control was not working when adding pads. Changed in release 32 --------------------- Outline editor : o Initial release of component outline editor. Changed in preview release 31 ----------------------------- General system : o Circuit schematic, design output tasks, and unreferenced outlines and custom pads would be lost from a design if a design was saved without any of the above data being first explored in the design navigator. Changed in preview release 30 ----------------------------- Artwork editor : o Back annotation from gate/pin swap and renumbering operations will now be propagated to the circuit schematic. o The artwork checker did not see size changes made to the sizes table in the current artwork editing session. Circuit schematic : o System was crashing if you tried to open a part that had a comma in its name. Sizes table editor : o If you used the function keys to toggle between inch/metric units, the currently selected value got corrupted. Changed in preview release 29 ----------------------------- Artwork editor : o System was crashing when you closed the artwork editor for a design where Amend->Replace Pad had been used on component pads. o Pads disappeared if you selected "filled" display mode. o "Named" unroutes view mode was not working. Design Outputs : o NC Drill and Rout data output implemented. o System will now issue an audible beep and display "Plot Complete" on the status bar on completion of plot file creation. o Configure->Move Plot and Keymove Plot were not working. o Solder Paste setup dialog was failing. o Drill drawing output was failing. Changed in preview release 28 ----------------------------- o First release of Gerber plot implementation. Changed in preview release 27 ----------------------------- Circuit schematic : o Symbol->Attribs->Move/Edit etc. was not picking up the correct attribute. o Wires->Attribs->Add was behaving in an erratic manner. o Allocate mode often required a deallocate action before it could be made to work. Changed in preview release 26 ----------------------------- Circuit schematic : o It was not possible to make a connection to a block io pin. (This error was reported as "p/w list compiler is not joining nets up through the hierarchy". A test job had been created, but because the connections would not attach to the block io pins, they had been released over the screen location where the io pin appeared, visually making a connection. However, because the io pin locator had not correctly located the pin as a valid connection target, the connection node was not tagged as connecting to the pin, with the resultant apparent compilation error) Changed in preview release 25 ----------------------------- Circuit schematic : o Circuit schematic was not being saved. o Edit -> Preferences dialog now available. o Schematic compilation now correctly generates unroutes in the artwork. Changed in preview release 24 ----------------------------- Artwork editor o Artwork editor now picks up gate and pin swap rules from the schematic parts. Please note that 'split' parts do not yet generate gate and pin swap information Initial preview of circuit schematic capture. Known problems : o Symbol editing mode not yet available. o Design navigation using the hierarchy tree not possible. o When 'find' operations require the opening of another view, the find marker is not placed on the correct sheet. o Many problems with 'split' parts and placeable power blocks. o Gate and pin swapping in the artwork does not yet back annotate to the schematic. o 'Region' commands not yet available. o Undo/Redo not yet available. o Allocation sometimes does not work unless you first do a deallocation operation. o Design compilation produces parts and net lists, but unroutes may not appear in the artwork editor. o System will crash if you use 'Copy' and 'Paste' on the design navigator to copy a schematic design sheet from another design into the currently open design. However, using part place mode to insert a design sheet from another open design will cause the design sheet and all required dependencies to be correctly imported.