Importance of Ease of use: Vias

[GarretF]

This post is part of a series on the Importance of Ease-of-Use in Design Tools, which explores design in graphical capture and simulation tools.

Okay, so this one goes a little further back to Ultiboard 10.1, but I think one release back is still relevant especially for long term users. In 10.1, it became possible to change a via’s lamination after placing the via. You can edit the lamination through the via’s property dialog (just double click the via), or through the Vias tab in the spreadsheet. I added some special information to the spreadsheet to help with editing of vias.

Ultiboard has two types of vias: micro and everything else, which I’ve called standard. The vias look a little different, and in version 10.1 or later, you can use the spreadsheet to identify of the type of the via. You can also use sort on any of the columns, for example, to sort by via type or by lamination.