I think the problem here is you are not reading what I'm writing.



I pay for my upgrades just like everyone else.




I believe I already did, however you seem to have an issue with my philosophy.

So, this is my last word on this topic and my last posting the this thread.

Hello,

I am new with Diptrace and don't use it for business but for hobby.

It is not a question of requesting or not components, if a basic design problem.

There is a lot of components and a lot of libraries, but the basic libraries are poor of basic components. The manufacturer libraries are almost useless since for each of them there are a few components of their huge catalogues. I can understand that, but I do'nt understand than the basics libraries do'nt have a least the most of the basic components used in most projects.

For instance, if you need a zener diode 3.3V 1W you do not care were it is coming from. When you start your project you ever do'nt know if it going to be 3.3V, you need something between 3 and 4V and between 1/2 and 1W. At that step you really don't care about the manufacturer.

The problem is that you do not find the generic zener diode to draw your project as you would on a simple piece of paper. If you are lucky, you might find the ZPY3.3 from Motorola, TI or anyone with a search function that takes a ages, if you can remenber that it is ZPY* for the zener diode, if you do'nt, you are in trouble.

What I dramaticly need for a first draw are generic components. For intance resistors 1/8W, 1/4W, 1/2W... CMS or not whatever the value is. Same for transistors PNP, NPN, different power and packaging whatever the transistor is. Same for all basic components. I will care of the exact value and type later.

I think it is normal to make generic request and it is the only way to improve the product.

Thanks to the technical support who answered and give us a hope.

Is it possible to make such a generic request in http://www.diptrace.com/libraries_req.php ?

Thanks for your help.

For the record, here is the point that was never responded to. BillO's business model is flawed. He has no plan to sell the DipTrace components he creates and thus there is zero profit in keeping them to himself. Sharing them, on the other hand, does profit him, because other users who use them have their time freed up to create other components. When they share those components BillO gets the benefit of a larger component library, which saves him money. So basically he is throwing away money because of ideology - the basic economics of using DipTrace makes it more profitable to share your libraries and less profitable to not share them. Plus, sharing is nice and good-will has a tangible value, whereas appearing to be selfish has tangible costs.

We plan to add additional fields (descriptions) for all components in standard libraries and enable search by these fields. This will do search in libraries more efficient.

Another specific positive benefit of uploading components and footprints is that it strengthens the DipTrace community, and more users means that DipTrace is more likely to stay a supported product. I'm a new DipTrace user, but have been laying out and building printed circuit boards since before personal computers and CAD. I may be wrong, but I don't consider DipTrace a "mainstream" product. What if the user base never becomes large enough to support continued development? Then I have to go learn another product all over again, or be stuck frozen in time. If I can do a few things (like upload some parts) to encourage more users, it's strongly to my benefit.

I'm also puzzled by BillO's first posting in which he talks about "things I need to design projects for the hobbyist level," and then later, he talks about his company and wanting to receive compensation for time "I and some of my people have spent." If he's running a company, he should expect to build part libraries with symbols and footprints that work for him; certainly the large instrument company from which I'm retired does that, and they paid a whole lot more for the EDA system they use than it costs to buy commercial DipTrace licenses. In any event, I'm finding that it doesn't take much time to bang out the custom symbols and footprints that I'm going to need in my first DipTrace project, even with only three or four hours of learning under my belt.

One thing I hope for it that if people upload symbols and footprints (components and patterns) that they will take the time to make sure they are done correctly, and will include a good description, one way or another. (One way is to put "manufacturer" and "Mfg Part Number" fields on all components, and a "source" field on patterns, which you fill out with a pointer to a specific part data sheet, or IPC reference, or whatever. I suppose you can also upload a zip file with the library or libraries, and a "readme" file.)

Cheers,
Tom