Sure, some of the cool features you see on the hot-shot upstarts like EveryCircuit and Circutlab aren't there, but they can't really do any real design.
Things I didn't know you could do, but I found out you can :
Mirror components - you just have to be "in" the Move or Drag commands. (CTRL-e is default bindkey)
Zoom selected - CTRL-Z (Cadencify to just z)
Re-map bindkeys (RTFM product :(, but it's free)
Jeez, they even have net highlighting - sure, it's not a user-friendly implementation, but it's there..
Goodbye Cadence!
Having said that, what might Mike add for us to please us?
- Zoom Cadence style - RightClick and drag.
- Wire snapping during draw mode.
- A way to prevent anyangle wire-stretch during Drag mode.
Provide a way to rename components:) (Exists!! It's an RTFM thing.. Editing Components)- A way to select components so you can do a certain operation on all of them :) Cadence is very powerful in this regard - if you have a bunch of current sources operating off a common VGS, you can select all of them, do 'q' and change the L and hit Ok, or Apply and all the other parameters will be untouched - so they could have different M's and those will be retained.
- Provide a command-mode for net-highlighting - and a way to highlight different nets in different colors :)
- A command-interpreter log - so you can see what commands you've sent the tool, so you can combine some of them into macros :)
- A way to do custom bindkeys - not just single commands, but macros (see above).
A way to view MOSFET parameters (like gm, VDSAT, etc)(Exists : Do CTRL-l to view the Spice Error Log - has the OP data. Needs a better UI though - like backannotation onto the schematic)- Also provide the noun-verb interface :) Sometimes, you want to select objects and then operate on them. This, coupled with the command-log and a programming interface would kill Cadence (meaning be very powerful and give us a super-tool). The extensibility would explode - Eg. you could write a script to fetch and display the OP info for a particular transistor.
- More UI-QA :) You will see during usage that it's possible to right-click and therefore edit things like device name and base-name (for example, if you add an "nmos", it's name is NMOS - it shouldn't be possible to change that). Sure, only a dumb user would do this, but no harm making stuff bullet-proof. They don't let you re-program your iPhone to not work anymore :)
- A way to Disable, rather than only Remove analyses types. For example, you have a .OP analysis and a .TRAN. At the end, only the .TRAN result is backannotated. Not good - you want to see the .OP. Only way is to delete the .TRAN. Would be nice if that form had a check-box that you could uncheck to disable the TRAN analysis. (*You can put a semicolon at the start of the spice directive to accomplish this*)
- Provide a way to pan in the waveform display. This is a pretty painful interface. Still, for free, you can't complain when you're able to zoom in. Still, would be nice if we could easily put down markers. Would be nice if you could use the arrow keys to move the waveform one way or the other.
- Provide an easy way to go to multi-strip mode. By default, it's overlay mode for the waveforms.. If you want to separate just one waveform, you need to create a new plot pane and drag that one to the pane.
- Provide wire routing - that is, when a user want to connect 2 terminals with a wire, he should be able to launch the wire command, click on the 2nd terminal and have a reasonable wire route (not something that goes over other instances) complete. A snap command like Cadence has would also be nice..
- Provide a way for a user to select signals to save - if you force-save everything by default, you might slow down the sim or use disk-space extravagantly.
- Provide multiple-monitor support - that is, when you create windows (like Cadence) allow the OS window manager (Win 7 for instance) to manage them. Don't force everything to be within ONE window. Analog Rails could listen to this too..
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