RE: Electric for MEMS and Microfluidics

[Steven Rubin]

At 01:53 AM 11/7/2007, you wrote:

> Hi Steven, thanks for the reply. I think Electric is a great 
> software overall and has a lot of potential for MEMS work. I 
> especially like the variety of I/O formats. Many masks print shops 
> ask for different layout formats (such as GDSII, ps, dxf) and don't 
> have the required conversion tools. Java is wonderful as well 
> because that means I can design in Mac OS X.
>
> An additional technology for MEMS work could be implemented, that 
> would help tremendously for mask layout. However, what would help 
> the most would be to have better capabilities for manipulating 
> polygons and shapes. In the Edit Menu, the Rotate, Mirror, Size and 
> Move submenus should all have buttons that are in the main window 
> interface. These are the most commonly used functions in mask layout 
> and therefore should be just one click away from the user.

Which of the commands would you want in the toolbar?  Is it not 
sufficient to rebind various keys to those commands (which you can do 
from the "Quick Key" Preferences)?

> When I first loaded a GDSII mask into Electric. I had difficulty 
> seeing my layout. There should be buttons that make it easy to show 
> and hide layers. Additionally, zooming in and out could be made much 
> easier with a zoom in and out button and using the mouse wheel while 
> holding down ctrl.

These two requests are already there.  Look in the "Layers" tab of 
the sidebar and you will see quick ways of controling layer 
visibility.  Also, the "zoom" tool (the magnifying glass in the 
toolbar) does give you quick zooming (when using this tool, hold the 
right button and move the cursor up and down to zoom in and out).

   -Steve