Feature Requests

I would love to help with a few features on this product. For starters: Generating parts from specs. Automatically laying out and orienting parts for easiest wiring.

Snapping is awesome, but sometimes I don't want it. So I nominate Command on Mac / Ctrl on Windows to disable snapping while held during a drag or routing interaction.

Let's focus on the problem: it's difficult to add a via in Flux outside of routing. The scenario I encountered was that I opened a project owned by the Flux org and noticed a couple issues. I took it upon myself to solve them. One issue was that an IC with a large, central GND pad wasn't connected to GND. I attempted to drop a via, since the GND fills behind it were free from obstacles. Right clicking on that pad caused the component to become selected and the Add menu was disabled. I locked the component and tried again - right click on the pad and the Layout became selected with Smart Via inside Add being disabled. I guess I can't add a via outside of a net – makes sense in theory, but in practice, it felt obvious what I was trying to do. The only things anywhere near my cursor were pads, vias, traces, and fills connected to GND. So I selected GND in the object list, right clicked there and successfully added a Smart Via. BUT because the via wasn't added in the center of my camera (a separate feature request filed for this) AND it wasn't selected after getting added (a feature currently being worked on now), I had no way of finding it. SO, finally, with the GND net selected in the object list, I right clicked on the canvas and BEHOLD, the via was created under my cursor in the correct net. .........that was way too hard, and surely we can make that process easier. I could imagine other scenarios where this would be relevant, like you might want to stitch some fill islands or polygons and just want to drop a via without having to begin routing from somewhere. Or the mentality of just starting with a via and then connecting it to a trace or pad – we should allow for the creation of rogue smart vias and reorganize the via into the correct net in that case.

I'm finding it challenging to export schematics in a format that's easy to read and print. It would be beneficial if I could export these schematics in PDF format for better readability and ease of printing.

We now hide pin names and numbers for all passives. But some passives are more complex and would be nice to see those pin names/numbers. Some examples: Polarized passives Passives with more than 2 pins

Add STEP files to the export options. STL files are good for 3D printing but contain a lot less information when working with mechanical CAD tools. That makes a STL file harder to edit.

When working with clients, I went them to have access to the project, but I don't want everyone to have access. It's also cumbersome to give them access by trying to find their username. It would be nice to allow anyone to access a project with a link, but no one else.

Traces could follow parts while dragging the parts around

Problem: 1 – Today, you can click on linked objects and rulesets in reviews and copilot messages and have them become selected. For objects, we also switch you to the object tab and for rulesets we switch you to the ruleset tab. Helpful, except that... we don't scroll the list so that selected object is in view. This is especially vexing for rulesets, where there is no corresponding object on the canvas to provide orientation. 2 – Selecting an object on canvas does not scroll it into view on the object list. This can make it annoying if what you want is to get orientation around its hierarchy, or actually select its parent, like a net. Solution: scroll any selected item into view. If you click on an object on the canvas and the object list is open, scroll that selected object into view. If you click on a link to an object, switch to the object tab (as today), and scroll to it If you click on a link to a ruleset, switch tot he rules tab (as today), and scroll to it

It's difficult to understand what a ruleset has actually selected. I'm writing this one as vague because there could be many solutions. More detail on the problem I faced. I didn't realize that I needed to click into the selector field to see the hover state on affect canvas objects. I thought I might get to hover on the field, or click the hint text "1 object selected". Hover did nothing, and clicking the text took me to the docs. Furthermore, even after giving the selector field focus, the hover state on affected objects goes away if I interact with the canvas, and doesn't return until I click out of that field and back into it. A more sane solution would be a more consistent indicator on canvas when I interact with the selector field, or some kind of list of objects under the selector field, again paired with a canvas visualization.