LT Spice flaws?...

[Terry Pinnell]

I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.

You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

--
Cheers
Clive

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

 

[server]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
<me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Simon S Aysdie]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:58:44 AM UTC-7, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.

Other than what has been mentioned, you can make your own symbol.
For example, inside:

..\\Documents\\LTspiceXVII\\lib\\sym

is the file res.asy, the resistor symbol. You can make your own and name it res1.asy, or whatever. Then you place that instead. The only issue is sharing the schematics--you\'d need to manage the extra symbol.

You can simply replace res.asy with your own, but again, compatibility is nice and you\'d need to pay attention to pin locations if you wish to maintain compatibility (sharing). (If the pin locations are held, you wouldn\'t need symbol sharing.) Also, the automatic update is convenient but it replaces all the standard lib items. That means you\'d need to do your own \"updates\" after the update to get your symbol back.

 

[bitrex]

On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.

It pushes the boundaries of what one software dev should really take on
as an individual project and suffers for it in some areas due to the
extreme not-designed-here mentality it was done with.

 

[bitrex]

On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.

That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

 

[server]

Thanks for those further posts.

Anyone know if it’s possible to set a hotkey for a component not on the list? For example, I’d like ‘R’ to place a ‘European resistor’ rather than the zigzag version.

 

[Pimpom]

On 7/31/2020 2:28 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

Not quite. I\'ve often felt like that too. Now there are two of
us.

Mine\'s not Pro though. Does the Pro version have 3D?

> But LT\'s UI is not so good.

It looks like an afterthought. The default settings are
particularly ugly, although one can get used to most things with
time.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 4:58:44 AM UTC-4, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.

Changing the symbol for a resistor is actually not a big deal. In fact, I thought they had symbols for the more European looking components, but maybe I\'m thinking of something else.

Many of the initial issues are not a big deal once you get used to them. My complain with LTspice is the difficulty with managing new device models. While there is info available on adding components to a given design, they nearly all talk about either adding the component to the master library or adding them to the local design library rather than a personal common library not part of any design.

Then there is the fact that while there are multiple ways to do many tasks, none of them are simple and/or obvious. The tool is highly cranky about tiny details with little rhyme or reason. There is a support group that has a handful of \"experts\" who often start off with telling you to read the help file even though the help file is very hard to search, hard to read and in some cases contains incorrect or misleading info.

There is also a \"wiki\" which by definition allows user input, but this wiki has all input disabled other than by the owner. Trying to get errors in that site fixed takes an act of god.

On the upside, once you get over the various \"humps\" it can be a very useful tool for free. Just learn to love the humps.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 6:30:58 AM UTC-4, Clive Arthur wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

I think M is by default in schematic capture the \"move\" command. I defined the N as the \"drag\" command so they are next to one another. Then I continued to make B the \"copy\" command and V to draw a wire. That puts 90% of my key action where my hand doesn\'t have to move. I could reach 99% if I used something nearby for delete and maybe redefined escape which I\'m not sure you can do.

+1 on the thicker line width, I think I\'m using 3 or maybe 4 rather than 1 because printing to PDF would not show up. I haven\'t found a way to make plots use thicker lines though so they can be printed to readable PDFs.

Turns out you can add lines and printing to the plots using drawing commands. I\'ve used that to label printouts.

You can save your plot setups .plt file extension I believe. Very handy! It saves all the signals you are viewing and the scale factors on the axes in addition to the colors. You can also define custom colors so they show up better.

Many, many user tips abound. So many they are hard to learn about.

Sometimes it\'s better to have a vanilla tool and just get the job done without all the drama of a bazillion petty details to memorize.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[server]

Thanks, good to know!

I went from CM 6 to CM 2000 Pro. Not sure what the differences are with ‘Pro’. Never use the TraxMaker section so can’t answer your question re 3D.

I have a CM puzzle which I’ll raise in a fresh post and hope you see it.

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 23:54:06 +0530, Pimpom <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

On 7/31/2020 2:28 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

Not quite. I\'ve often felt like that too. Now there are two of
us.

Mine\'s not Pro though. Does the Pro version have 3D?

But LT\'s UI is not so good.

It looks like an afterthought. The default settings are
particularly ugly, although one can get used to most things with
time.

I like it. Mostly. I\'ve used much worse, and had to pay for it.

I don\'t suppose you kids remember typing netlists.

 

[bitrex]

On 7/31/2020 2:56 PM, Ricketty C wrote:

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.

It annoys me when software developers don\'t follow the standard
conventions of the platform they\'re developing for like in most Windows
software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it\'s F9 and Shift + F9
problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control
bound to those keys and you have to press a \"Fn\" button to activate the
functions.

And if you can\'t change the bindings in the application and e.g. have to
run the application on a machine where you\'re not root and can\'t change
the function key mapping either you\'re left having to do a three-finger
salute to undo.

There are good reasons not to mess with the conventions from a usability
perspective mainly because you have some guarantee nobody else on the
hardware/OS side has or will bind them to anything.

 

[boB]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 20:06:35 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/31/2020 2:56 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.


It annoys me when software developers don\'t follow the standard
conventions of the platform they\'re developing for like in most Windows
software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it\'s F9 and Shift + F9
problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control
bound to those keys and you have to press a \"Fn\" button to activate the
functions.

And if you can\'t change the bindings in the application and e.g. have to
run the application on a machine where you\'re not root and can\'t change
the function key mapping either you\'re left having to do a three-finger
salute to undo.

There are good reasons not to mess with the conventions from a usability
perspective mainly because you have some guarantee nobody else on the
hardware/OS side has or will bind them to anything.

You can change the key bindings. My version of LTspice does use Ctl-Z
and Ctl-Y for undo/redo. I couldn\'t stand F9 either

As for the look of components, you can create your own .ASY file and
make it look like you want to, except for encrypted AD or LT parts.

I much prefer the wiggly resistor look..... /\\/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\ .......

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 7/31/2020 2:56 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.


It annoys me when software developers don\'t follow the standard
conventions of the platform they\'re developing for like in most Windows
software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it\'s F9 and Shift + F9
problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control
bound to those keys and you have to press a \"Fn\" button to activate the
functions.

And if you can\'t change the bindings in the application and e.g. have to
run the application on a machine where you\'re not root and can\'t change
the function key mapping either you\'re left having to do a three-finger
salute to undo.

There are good reasons not to mess with the conventions from a usability
perspective mainly because you have some guarantee nobody else on the
hardware/OS side has or will bind them to anything.

This drove me nuts on my last machine until someone pointed out the setting for this is in the BIOS and can be switched.

Not sure if that works for all computers, but I\'ve used it on a couple.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricketty C]

On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 11:03:22 PM UTC-4, boB wrote:

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 20:06:35 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/31/2020 2:56 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.


It annoys me when software developers don\'t follow the standard
conventions of the platform they\'re developing for like in most Windows
software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it\'s F9 and Shift + F9
problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control
bound to those keys and you have to press a \"Fn\" button to activate the
functions.

And if you can\'t change the bindings in the application and e.g. have to
run the application on a machine where you\'re not root and can\'t change
the function key mapping either you\'re left having to do a three-finger
salute to undo.

There are good reasons not to mess with the conventions from a usability
perspective mainly because you have some guarantee nobody else on the
hardware/OS side has or will bind them to anything.


You can change the key bindings. My version of LTspice does use Ctl-Z
and Ctl-Y for undo/redo. I couldn\'t stand F9 either

As for the look of components, you can create your own .ASY file and
make it look like you want to, except for encrypted AD or LT parts.

I much prefer the wiggly resistor look..... /\\/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\ .......

Making a .ASY file is a PITA. If you don\'t like the schematic editor interface, you will really hate the symbol editor interface which uses different default key bindings!!!

You couldn\'t make this stuff up.

I wonder if LTspice has a key that scrambles the key mappings?

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[server]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 20:06:35 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 7/31/2020 2:56 PM, Ricketty C wrote:
On Friday, July 31, 2020 at 1:03:29 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 7/31/2020 10:20 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:40:08 +0100, Terry Pinnell
me@somewhere.invalid> wrote:

Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/07/2020 09:58, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I\'ve recently started using LT Spice. A great free tool, with the
overriding advantage of widespread use. (Unlike CircuitMaker 2000 Pro,
of which I seem to be the only current user on the planet.)

But LT\'s UI is not so good. Have there been any hacked versions that
attempt improvements? For example, using the more modern rectangular
resistors rather than zigzags? And I was surprised to find the wires of
my first schematic printout seemed about a single pixel in width, barely
readable.


You\'ll find a rectangular \'European Resistor\' in Misc. I only use them
when I want to indicate a load, or significant dissipation.

\'Pen thickness\' under control panel/drafting options can make the lines
thicker, and \'Hot Keys\' can configure the keyboard option. I use R for
rotate, W for wire ctrl-C for copy, M for move D for drag etc.

But yes, the UI isn\'t its strong point.

Great, thanks Clive. I had scanned the settings but clearly not
thoroughly enough!

Terry

The HELP isn\'t very good. Some important things aren\'t mentioned at
all. Google often provides better help, and there are some good
tutorial/manuals online.

I use it sometimes just to create graphs for manuals, not necessarily
actual electronics, but you have to play with settings to get a good
image.




That is to say they could have kept the engine closed source and used an
off-the-shelf UI system like Qt to make it intrinsically cross-platform
and a nicer interface but didn\'t do that for whatever reason.

It runs OK on linux under Wine but some things don\'t work quite right
e.g. copy and pasting across schematics is borked under Wine on every
Linux variant I\'ve tried it on.

Copy and paste is borked under Windows. You have to do the copy, then you can only switch schematics one way or the command is ended. I think it\'s with the TAB key. Click the mouse on the tab and the command is ended. Lots of goofy little things like this to learn.

What really bugs me though is the arcane details of modifying symbols and adding new models. I recently had a lengthy discussion about one way to do this where I was pointed to the help file only to find the help file had rather misleading data. Then people were other than polite discussing it as if the confusion is the user\'s fault. After saying \"here\'s a way that works\" and being shown it doesn\'t work the response was that the behavior of the generated .net file command syntax is exactly as documented even though .net file syntax was not part of the original discussion. But that was the level of support in the help file.

So be prepared to learn how the piston rings work if you want to drive anywhere other than the corner market.


It annoys me when software developers don\'t follow the standard
conventions of the platform they\'re developing for like in most Windows
software undo is cntl + Z and cntl + Y. in Spice it\'s F9 and Shift + F9
problem is a lot of newer PCs have functions like the backlight control
bound to those keys and you have to press a \"Fn\" button to activate the
functions.

But LT Spice has an UNDO icon right in the toolbar. You don\'t have to
take your hand off the mouse.

At least under Windows, copying a part or a chunk of circuit between
schematics is easy. No hotkeys, just the copy symbol on the toolbar.

I think the only hotkey I use in LT is g for ground.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Pimpom]

On 8/1/2020 12:08 AM, Ricketty C wrote:

Many of the initial issues are not a big deal once you get used to them. My complain with LTspice is the difficulty with managing new device models. While there is info available on adding components to a given design, they nearly all talk about either adding the component to the master library or adding them to the local design library rather than a personal common library not part of any design.

That\'s what I like about CircuitMaker 2000. Creating a \"common
personal library not part of any design\" is straightforward,
especially for the PCB section. I\'ve been using my own footprints
exclusively for a decade and a half. Macros for the schematic
portion is somewhat more convoluted but not too bad.

Designs don\'t have to be part of a project. One can draw a
schematic or PCB layout and save it as a standalone file.

> Then there is the fact that while there are multiple ways to do many tasks, none of them are simple and/or obvious. The tool is highly cranky about tiny details with little rhyme or reason.

That\'s what I think of as the Windoze approach.

There is a support group that has a handful of \"experts\" who often start off with telling you to read the help file even though the help file is very hard to search, hard to read and in some cases contains incorrect or misleading info.

The old helicopter joke.

On the upside, once you get over the various \"humps\" it can be a very useful tool for free. Just learn to love the humps.

No argument there. I still have a lot to learn about LTSpice though.