What's Good About SPB16.2 OrCAD Capture? Many Usability Enhancements!

Hi Huy, Good enha ...

Jerry GenPart — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:55:12 GMT

Hi Huy,

Good enhancement suggestion! Let me check with our R&D team to see if this is in the future Capture-CIS product roadmap. I'll file a new SR in your name so we can track this and reply to this blog when an answer is available.

Hi Jerry, Any cha ...

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:53:20 GMT

Hi Jerry,

Any chance revision control will be incorporated into future versions of Orcad CIS? Generating a Bill of Material from Orcad CIS is a snap. What I find tedious is determining which component got deleted, added, or changed since the last revision. The PCB assembly house typically wants an ECO telling them what part got changed so they don't have to re-process the entire Bill of Material each time a new revision is released. Being able to add a label, for example REV1, and comparing that to a later revision REV2 for any component changes will go a long way in making BOM generation in capture CIS much more friendly.

Huy

Hi MJ - Well, I k ...

Jerry GenPart — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:33:40 GMT

Hi MJ -

Well, I know a "little" about Capture. My real expertise is with Design Entry HDL (DHDL - previously known as ConceptHDL), PDV, libraries, and all the other front end tools.

I'll find out about this issue (I'm filing a Service Request on your behalf - since that's what I do - I'm a Customer Support Application Engineer), and we'll work to find you a resolution.

Jerry Grzenia

Hi Jerry, It look ...

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:12:15 GMT

Hi Jerry,

It looks like you know Capture inside out. Great comments, I learned alot just in the above. Question, in my previous version I could get full screen view on a 24" monitor, and now in 16.2.0.p001 I cannot; I tried the cntl-F8 but that is still only about 2/3 of the available screen size. Using all of my 24" monitor for a layout helps reduce scrolling and helps me justify to my boss the new monitor. Help!

Just to close on Mik ...

Jerry GenPart — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:19:35 GMT

Just to close on Mike's "add libraries" question above:

Go to Options> Preferences> miscellaneous

[Dock Place part] - uncheck this.

You need to re-invoke Capture.

Jerry

Hi Mike - Sure, y ...

Jerry GenPart — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:48:47 GMT

Hi Mike -

Sure, you most certainly can provide input on areas of the products that need improvement. I'd like a little more clarification on the details of what is not working properly in the Capture part look-up window and I'll Email you on this.

Jerry

I don't know if this ...

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 01:35:40 GMT

I don't know if this is the correct forum for dissenters, but I am not a fan of the new part lookup in Capture. In fact, on my laptop it is unusable, since the window does not scroll, it does not let me add in my libraries. As I speak I am going to have to remote login to my work to make simple changes.

"If it aint broke, don't fix it"

Hi Evan, I'm not ...

Jerry GenPart — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:57:21 GMT

Hi Evan,

I'm not sure how ThomasH's reply maintained the format.

Our Blog IT folks are checking into this and I hope to have an answer soon.

Thanks again for the additional suggestions. Look for new SRs from me next week.

Jerry GenPart

Sorry for the inabil ...

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:38:09 GMT

Sorry for the inability to format my above post. I hope it can be read. How is ThomasH's post formatted nicely??

Thank you Jerry for taking a look at my suggestions.

I thought of a couple more:

11. If there's a problem during simulation, the Simulation Output File will indicate the problem. It would be fabulous if the errors were clickable links that jump to the schematic and highlight the net, or part, or whatever element is causing the error. Similar to how PCB Editor's pop up boxes have clickable coordinates.

12. I can't find a way to get the Find Window dialog to the right side, with the Place Part dialog. If this can be done, do tell. If not, that would be nice.

13. Since so much of the UI is not prettier, how about cleaning up the last few windows that linger on with outdated looks? For instance, the Select Directory window (accessed by the Browse button in the New Project window) is unfashionably Windows 2000.

Wow Evan! Outstandin ...

Jerry GenPart — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:52:37 GMT

Wow Evan! Outstanding and very detailed suggestions.

For those who may not know, Evan represents one of our strategic customers with the Cadence front-end products. I've worked with Evan over the past couple years in the DEHDL space. He has provided numerous and valuable feature and methodology suggestions to our R&D and Marketing teams - with some becoming new features within the products.

I will digest each of these and take your input to our R&D/Marketing teams to see what might be on the future roadmap for some of these enhancements. As you know, my usual style will be to track these personally with you through Service Requests and CCRs. I'll be filing these over the course of the next few days and provide you updates. For any suggestions that become confirmed / committed features in a future release, I'll mention those back into this blog. Jerry GenPart

I LOVE all the new f ...

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:27:12 GMT

I LOVE all the new features in Capture. The tabs make it so much easier to work with multiple projects at once, the Find features are spectacular, and the Place Part dialog is a huge time saver! That fact that Capture looks so much prettier is icing on the proverbial schematic entry cake! Not only is there more power, but it's easier to access all the power. Way to go Cadence - give yourself a pat on the back.

Not to downplay all the wonderful progress made, but here are a couple of suggestions I'd like to make:

1. I like the Session log in a tab, and by default the Session log is docked at the bottom of the Capture window and I don't have the 'Docked to' and 'MID child as' options under the RMB menu. How about adding those options even when the Session log (or other similar menus) are already docked. In fact, why aren't these RMB options available when clicking on ANY window (like a tab)? It doesn't make sense to me that I have to pull a window out and make it floating before I have the ability to arrange it in any possible fashion.

2. A one-click way to close tabs, instead of the RMB menu of the little 'X' in the upper right of the Capture window. Perhaps a little 'X' on each tab?

3. A way to re-arrange tabs (or possibly all tabs in a project, as the tabs in a project should always stay grouped together, I think). That's a minor enhancement.

4. Why not combine the Tools and Options menus? They appear to cover the same things to me and only a Tools menu seems more common in most Windows applications. Plus, Probe has Customize under the Tools menu and no Options menu.

5. The ability to auto-fit the tab width and/or set a max and min tab width. Because the tabs are rather small by default, similarly named projects open at the same time can get confusing. If I could expand the tab width I'd more easily be able to see what was happening in each tab.

6. I'd still like to have the site configuration ability in Capture that is available in DE HDL and PCB Editor. The inability to provide a standard set of customizations for all Capture users at my site is limiting. There are many options, settings, menus, UI features, network links, etc. that I would like to change from the Capture default and standardize for all users but I am unable to do so.

7. ThomasH does have great suggestions - I am especially fond of 1, 2, and 8.

8. I think even more could be done with the right side dialog (tabs) instead of just Place Part. A combination dialog (tab) controlling New/Edit Simulation Profile, with a Profile switcher, would eliminate having to open up separate floating windows to adjust simulation parameters. Or an Options dialog, similar to PCB Editor, could be used to set line width and junction dot size when drawing wires, for example. A dialog (tab) for 'post-process' Project Manager options seems to make sense to me; I'm envisioning a dialog (tab) that combines Annotate, DRC, Cross-reference, and/or BOM functions instead of having separate windows popping up for all those features.

9. Going along with #7 above, how about a Simulation dialog (tab) that adds all the Advanced Analysis and Markers into a single tab? I very often use the Advanced Analysis Markers and I'd much prefer an innocuous pop-out dialog (tab) instead of having to dig through multiple levels of the menus to get to the marker that I want.

10. And finally, when moving parts/wires and markers, the some marker get 'caught' and don't move with the other elements, but some do. Then I get a dialog box telling me "Voltage/digital level marker will be ignored..." and I have to move the markers back onto the circuit where they belong manually. I've been dealing with this for a long, long time. Is there a plan to ever fix this??

And a little note for Probe: wouldn't it make more sense to have the Toggle Cursor icon in the Cursor toolbar instead of the Probe toolbar?

Hi Thomas, I have so ...

Jerry GenPart — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:07:40 GMT

Hi Thomas, I have some high level answers to some of your suggestions. For our SPB16.3 release, there's a "Design Navigation Improvement" project which will provide several usability enhancements. This is still being worked, so please don't expect all of these to be in the next release. The first 4 items in your list would fall under this project and the R&D and Marketing teams are considering them as part of this project. Thanks again for your great ideas!

Hi Peter, As with th ...

Jerry GenPart — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:51:18 GMT

Hi Peter, As with the the prior feedback - very good comments and suggestions. As I indicated, I'll be speaking with our R&D team about your questions and provide an update in this Blog about whether or not these are planned enhancements in future roadmaps.

From a customer with ...

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:59:02 GMT

From a customer with many years experience view, the following two changes are very very usefull, but I don't konw if 16.2 has made such change. 1. when selecting browse-parts, the column should be capable of custormization, for example, designer cares PCB Footprint property, but it can not be displayed, Value and PCB Footprint properties are most cared properties by designer,design often want to check it and change it. 2. In edit property spreadsheet, it should support CTRL-V, many customer properties, such as customer PN, are copied from a another application, such as text editor, ORCAD doesn't allow you paste it to cell with CTRL-V, it's very trouble, you have to type it in cell, it will lead to mistake chance. The two points are very very useful for designer, I hope Cadence pay attention to these.

Hi Thomas, These ...

Jerry GenPart — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:44:01 GMT

Hi Thomas,

These are great suggestions!

Give me a few days to research some of these and work with our

R&D team to see what can be done today (perhaps a hidden capability)

and what our future roadmap looks like to include some of your

requests.

Jerry GenPart

P.S. I found your contact details in our Customer Support system,

so I've also formally filed a new Service Request to track this.