CircuitSmith / News: Recent posts

I just let my domain lapse after years of doing nothing.

I've done a little housekeeping on this sourceforge site, mostly to remove references to the old web site.

I've been spending what little spare time I have working on my other project jOcular. Maybe I'll get some time in the not to distant future to resume work on CircuitSmith.

We'll see.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

Well, things are still moving along, albeit slowly. I am still not bothering to release files because there's no point anyone trying it out unless they are interested in working on the project. If you want to try out the latest code, you'll have to get it from the CVS.

On the bright side, Polygon fills are close to working in PCBs. The drawing, flood filling, island removal and gerber output of polygons is all working. There are some details to do with text rendering which still is not fully functional, and this actually exposed a bug in text rendering which has been lurking for a while elsewhere.... read more

Well, things are moving very slowly right now. My time is pretty thin on the ground. Right now the CVS version can go from Schematic to PCB to Gerber and I'm testing things out by advancing the test files. There are a number of issues but I'm ignoring them while I evaluate the overall functionality.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

Well, it's the new year and I've been a bit busy with our new baby. Nevertheless, I hope to continue tinkering away at CircuitSmith in the coming weeks and months.

My present task is to complete the hierarchical netlist generation. Then I will make these linked to the PCBs. Hopefully after those steps CircuitSmith will start to be a useful program, although limited perhaps.

I've put two new screenshots up on Sourceforge showing the latest and greatest.... read more

Please welcome roylam as a new developer for CircuitSmith! To begin with he'll be investigating producing gerber files from an EdaDrawing by implementing the Graphics2D interface.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

After a long break, we've begun work again. Already the CVS version is showing promise. The beginnings of PCB functionality are there, and a whole bunch of code cleanup has been done. Hopefully there will be a new release in a month or two.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

Mike has set up the CVS repository and I've finally started using it. I've been working off the circuitsmith module rather than the Circuitsmith one. From now on I will work off of this rather than my own private source tree.

There's a new release. The main thing to notice is the addition of simulation stuff. Currently, you can run a simulation from a schematic (try "spice test.cpf") but that's all. A simulation pane opens, but it doesn't do anything yet. With some luck a thread starts, writes a netlist file, calls spice and parses the results. Check out the console output.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

This is it. We've finally got to the V0.1.0 release. This is not to say that CircuitSmith is a useful program yet, but that Schematic Capture is possible after a fashion. This is not even to say that the schematic end of things is complete, only that is is complete enough to move on to development in other areas of the code.

I hope you give it a good workout and let me know any bugs you find. There are also plenty of additional features which you might want to point out.... read more

I've added a bunch of taskes for Spice integration. I was playing with Spice over the weekend to try to determine the best way to implement Spice integration into CircuitSmith. I've mapped out a few tasks to bring the project in that direction. There are four main steps required to simulate a circuit. The first is to generate a Spice format netlist, then Spice is run in batch mode with output to a rawfile. The third step is to parse the rawfile into a data structure in CircuitSmith and then finally to display the data as a plot.... read more

I'm working my way to the V0.1.0 release. There are a bunch of bug fixes; the test files are more complete and there are a few more features.

The next release should be out shortly, then I'll start working on PCB functionality.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

This version has the ability to change fonts and a bunch of other stuff.

Kenneth.

I finally broke down and registered the www.circuitsmith.com domain. It pretty much just links to the old web site but it's a start.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

There are a bunch of new icons, thanks to Dave Gullacher. Also, documents in a library are now read-only. There are a few bug fixes and other stuff which I can't remember.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

This version has printing move a small step closer to working. Now when you print, you should see the selected document, and it should fit the page. There are also a few minor tweaks.

I've just released a new version. There are a bunch of fixes which you may not notice. Basically I pretended like I could do useful stuff with the program by trying to rework the test files. This flushed out a bunch of errors and bugs. I've squashed most of these but I'm sure there's more. There are three test files now. "test.cpf" is the same as before. "test2.cpf" is a demo of a project with a library "testlibrary.cpf". You can also open "testlibrary.cpf" to see how that works.... read more

I know it has only been a tick since the last release. I got libraries working so I thought it best to get this version out as soon as possible. Check out test2.cpf for an example.

I've put out another version. There's a bunch of bug fixes and new features. Check it out.

Kenneth.

I know, it's only a day since the last. Well I found a bunch of bugs and thought I better get a new version out.

See what you think.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

The biggest change is the addition of an Ant build file, thanks to Steve Kelem. I've also added a launch script for Linux and a batch file for Windows. I hope they work! I fixed a bunch of bugs, but I've discovered a ton more. I'll put them in the bug list.

This is a feature packed release!
-The "Set Ref" action in schematics does more checking now so it doesn't mess things up.
-Attribute text of symbols can now be edited with the properties dialog.
-By selecting a part in the part list and hitting the "Show Symbol" tool button the schematic containing the symbol will appear.
-I fixed the bug where the headers of the part list don't update when you sort.
-I also noticed that when you try to sort a non-string column of the part list you get an error. I've fixed this.
-other stuff is new too but I can't remember just now.... read more

There is now a set reference action.

The main feature of this - other than setting a symbols referece designator - is that if a symbol of a multi-symbol part is set to that of another symbol of the same type then they both then will reference the same part. The old part is left hanging in the part list. My next job is to start cleaning these up.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

The recent files now update correctly. PartLists are more functional. They don't show parts which are don't have a "ref" attribute and you can edit the attitributes on the part list. Undoing these edits is also in place.

Have a play and see what you think.

Cheers,

Kenneth.

The EdaDrawingPane is getting prepped for various other types of clicking. If you double click on an object it selects the object and opens a properties dialog.

Also, thanks to Harry, the split pane position is now stored as well as the most recent project directory.

I really should get the CVS going now that other people are starting to work on the project as well. Can anyone give me some pointers on how I should set it up?... read more

I've just updated the "installing" and "using" sections of the CircuitSmith web site. I have also updated the javadocs after doing the new hierarchy. If you browse these you'll get the picture.

Cheers,

Kenneth.