Design Notes

Add ‘sticky’ notes to annotate your design. These might be ECO notes to apply, questions about the design for other people to answer, ideas, reminders and suchlike.
Notes in Easy-PC are intelligent; they will have a subject or title, can be categorised and can be formatted using different colours, fonts, sizes etc. Importantly, Notes can be synchronised with the PCB to ensure all information is passed from one design to anther. User defined markers are placed in the design to indicate a Note, the notes are displayed in a Notes Browser bar, docked at the side of Easy-PC like other dockable windows. From this you can also edit, view and print Notes. A standard report of all Notes in the design can be printed for use with your audit trail of a design project.

Active Reports

All design reports can be output as HTML Reports with a live link back to design once run. Using its own Report Browser window, reports are formatted and displayed without the need for an additional text editor. Using this report window, items within it are displayed as hyperlinks, selecting these will highlight the appropriate item within the design. Reports can be printed from this window to further add value to this new feature.

User-defined 3D Packages

In addition to the built-in 3D shape primitives, you can now create your own 3D packages or customise the existing package with extra graphical elements. A new editor mode within the 3D packager allows flexibility for creation and manipulation of your own detailed packages. More detail in your own packages means higher quality graphics once you use the 3D Viewer, this also means a higher quality print or picture if used for documentation.

Schematic Star Points & Star Point Components

To complement Star Points in PCB, you can now add Star Points to Schematic Symbols and PCB Footprints. You can also create Star Point Components that can be used in both design editors. Within Properties you can define terminal pins and pads as Star Points; the design editors intelligently manage this pin data and apply the appropriate rules to them.

Nudge feature

The ability to ‘nudge’ a design item onto the next grid or partial grid step has been added. Selection of an item will allow you to nudge it without the need to enter Move mode, this makes simple adjustments very quick.

Auto-neck between items during track editing

With the Auto Neck feature enabled, when adding or editing a track, if the edit will create a DRC error between the track and the item, the track will be automatically ‘necked’ down to its alternative width as defined in the Net Class.

Stretch/Centre/Equi-space items

Spread out items equally in the design using the three new modes available. Each mode performs a slightly more refined ‘spread’. Where the aesthetics of the design is important or critical, this saves you time using specific grids and adjusting the placement manually.

Page Links in Schematics

Page links in the Schematic allow you jump to other pages where the same net name is used. Used in conjunction with the Sheets Where Used attribute, you can also display all the pages that this item appears on.

Angled Thermal Pages

When creating power planes or partial planes, you can now default to angled thermal pads. This will put in angled spokes (45 degrees for 4 spokes) instead of the more usual orthogonal (90 degree) angled spokes. You may have a design that is tight for space and angles spokes may be a better option to maximise spoke usage.

Application Start Page

For new and occasional users, we have introduced a Start-up page which provides you with a central location to access your recent designs, libraries and projects. Using our ‘live’ link, you can also be kept up-to-date with the latest information about Easy-PC and related topics. An option switch enables you to de-select this feature should you wish to.

Additional Pin Styles in Schematics

New Pin Styles have been added to the Schematic editor allowing you to use Diamond, Octagon and Triangle. These pin shapes can be used to create symbols for annotation within your design.

Pro-Library 5 Update

With it's fifth update, another 12,400 components have been added to the Pro-library taking the total to over 69,600. These are ready to use and to simply drop into your design. New components are included for the Cypress, Linear Technology, Maxim, National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments libraries.
If you have purchased any previous versions of the Pro-library, you can upgrade for just £59 when you upgrade to Easy-PC 16*. Offer is limited to July-August 2012.

Visit the Pro-Library page.

Micro Library 5 Update

With the release of Micro-Controller Library 5, we've added over 3,800 new Micro library parts to the existing library. These include parts from the Atmel, Microchip and Zilog ranges. If you have purchased any previous version of this library, you can upgrade for just £47 when you upgrade to Easy-PC 16*. Offer is limited to July-August 2012.

Visit the Micro Library page.

Connector Library 3 Update

The connector library has been increased by 248 new parts. We’ve added components from the Tyco ranges; 1734261, 1734289, HPI, HPI_125, HPI_125SMT, HPI_125SRA and MiniCT. This library upgrade is supplied free of charge if you already have the Connector library 2 and are purchasing Version 16 under the summer promotion. If not, a small charge of £34 will be made to upgrade from Conn Lib 1 or 2. Offer is limited to July-August 2012.

Visit the Connector Library page.

If you already have the Easy-Router product, upgrade to Version 16 and receive the Trace-Router at absolutely no extra charge! If you don't have Easy-router already, then there is a small charge for you to take this powerful new autorouter.