Following on from the company’s promise to continue to support and improve CadSoft’s EAGLE™ software, Premier Farnell has released version 5.7 of the popular CAD tool. EAGLE™ 5.7 now offers many more features intended to give the user a more powerful and intuitive tool.
Some of the most anticipated improvements of EAGLE™ 5.7 are listed below. For a more complete list of the changes, go here
Control Panel:
o The "View/Refresh" option in the Control Panel's pulldown menu now has the platform specific hotkey.
· User Language:
o The new User Language functions setgroup() and clrgroup() can be used to set and clear the flags that define whether an object is within the current group.
o It is now possible to directly access members in an array of UL_* objects, as in
UL_SMD smds[];
...
if (smds[i].x == smds[j].x)
...
· AUTO command:
o The AUTO command now supports selecting signal names by wildcards.
· BOARD command:
o Added a consistency check right after a board is newly created from a schematic, in order to immediately catch any problems that otherwise might have turned up later on.
· DELETE command:
o Pads/smds can now be deleted from a package in a library, even if the package is in use by a device, as long as the pad/smd is not referenced by any pin in any device of that library.
o Pins can now be deleted from a symbol in a library, even if the symbol is in use by a device set, as long as the pin is not referenced by any pad/smd in any device of that library.
· OPTIMIZE command:
o The OPTIMIZE command now flashes the selected signal to provide visual feedback to a mouse click.
· PAD command:
o The PAD command can now add a pad to a package, even if that package is in use by a device.
· PIN command:
o The PIN command can now add pins to a symbol, even if that symbol is in use by a device set.
· PRINT command:
o The PRINT dialog now contains a list of all available printers for direct selection. Printing to a PDF or Postscript file can also be selected from this list.
o The new option CAPTION of the PRINT command can be used to print a caption from the command line.
o The PRINT FILE command now refuses to write any of the file extensions .brd.sch.lbr.gpi.dri.whl.drl.ulp.epf.cam.scr.exe.com.bat.cmd.sys.dll, to make sure files are not overwritten inadvertently.
· RATSNEST command:
o The context menu of wires and vias that belong to a signal now contains the RATSNEST command.
· ROUTE command:
o The Follow-me router now uses the via diameter as set in the parameter toolbar.
· SMD command:
o The SMD command can now add an smd to a package, even if that package is in use by a device.
· CAM Processor:
o Added CAM Processor driver GERBER_RS274X_25 with 2.5 inch coordinate format.
· Miscellaneous:
o Improved the performance of recalculating the ratsnest in the board after an ADD, DELETE or PASTE command in the schematic, in case many pins are processed that are connected to the same net.
o The color index in the dxf.ulp now starts at 1, since AutoCAD 2007 doesn't like color 0.
o Implemented the placeholders >SHEETNR and >SHEETS to make the sheet number and the total number of sheets in a schematic available separately.
To download and try EAGLE 5.7, choose your operating system from the list below
Windows: download here
This self-extracting archive will guide you through the setup process.
This self-extracting shell script will guide you through the setup process. You may need to click on the above link with the right mouse button and select "Save Link As...".
Mac: download here
Unzipping the file results in a Mac Installer. Run the installer to install EAGLE on your system.
