The most requested feedback has been improvements across several areas of ports and how they operate. We are thrilled to share we have made a number of improvements in this release, with more improvements coming in future releases to continue to address additional feedback.
Automatic port placement based on signal flow
First, there is now more consistent port alignments on gear with automatic placement based on signal flow. We are excited to share the following updates in this release:
- Ports now apply to gear in a fixed order; specifically bidirectional ports first on both left and right sides, inputs on the left, and outputs on the right
- When using Left or Right Detail Modes, inputs will be above outputs on whichever side you choose
- When in Default Detail Mode, bidirectional ports will evenly split between left and right sides if there are more than 4 within the same port group
- Ports of the same colour (AKA their Port Type) will now be grouped together for an easier and more pleasing port placement
- In addition they will always apply in the same order across all gear items too (all BNC first, then DisplayPort, etc.)
- Note that the signal flow placement as described above will take priority over this grouping
- As part of this, there is a brand new port sorting algorithm which enables the maintaining of connections as described below
Connections are now maintained when re-ordering ports
Thanks to the new port sorting algorithm, connections are no longer removed when you re-order and re-number ports in the drawing. The warning informing you that connections will be deleted has been removed, and connections now maintain their same connection after the sorting is complete.
Fixed port spacing
Prior to v1.20.0, the default spacing would evenly spread-out ports along each side of the gear. While this is nice for gear in Standard Mode with only a handful of ports, for gear in Detail Mode, this caused some complications. In addition to being visually unpleasing on some gear items, it more importantly created alignment issues when trying to maintain straight connections between two gear items, as the ports across gear items might be a few pixels off from each other.
The new default is to have a fixed spacing between all ports when in Detail Mode instead of spreading all ports out along each side which fixes these issues and gives a more consistent appearance across several gear items.
You can still revert to the evenly spaced option by changing the Fixed Port Spacing setting for your selected gear in either General Settings or in Reports. Please note this new setting only applies to Detail Mode gear items.
The new default is to have a fixed spacing between all ports when in Detail Mode instead of spreading all ports out along each side which fixes these issues and gives a more consistent appearance across several gear items.
You can still revert to the evenly spaced option by changing the Fixed Port Spacing setting for your selected gear in either General Settings or in Reports. Please note this new setting only applies to Detail Mode gear items.
Ports generated from expansion cards no longer get stuck to one side
An issue on gear that primarily/only uses Expansion Cards, was all its ports would end up one side. Any port that was added from an Expansion Card now follows all the same logic as described above for more consistent items.
Note on existing files
We try to keep existing projects the same as much as possible when new versions are released, to avoid unexpected changes when coming back to your projects. As such, we only apply updates such as the ones described above to new items in the drawing. Because of this, you may notice some size and alignment inconsistences with existing gear if you edit them after the project has been upgraded to the latest version.
If you experience any oddities, toggle one of the gear's port's Visibility status in the Port Table. Once toggled off and on once, the new size will be re-calculated and your ports re-sorted to the new algorithm.
Please feel free to reach out to support if you need any assistance.
If you experience any oddities, toggle one of the gear's port's Visibility status in the Port Table. Once toggled off and on once, the new size will be re-calculated and your ports re-sorted to the new algorithm.
Please feel free to reach out to support if you need any assistance.
Improvements
- Added Detail Mode (hidden by default) as a non-editable field to gear reports
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Use Port Colours and Use Layer Colours not disabling in Reports when the report was locked
- Fixed Locked being editable in Reports for gear that isn't in the drawing, leading to issues when trying to insert it again