We are thrilled to announce the release of Fritzing version 1.0.0. This is a major release, with many new features and improvements.
Announcing Fritzing 1.0.0 - A Major Release
Fritzing 1.0.0 was released on Friday, 16th of June 2023.
This major release has been thoroughly tested on Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS Ventura, macOS Monterey, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 22.04. It will work on other Linux variants with glibc >= 2.31 (64 bit Intel/AMD), too.
What’s New in Fritzing 1.0.0
Simulator
The simulator is now officially supported. We added SPICE data for more parts, like RGB-LEDs and photo cells.
New Font OCR-Fritzing
This font replaces the use of OCR-A. It adds Greek letters, diacritics, and other symbols, like á ä å à é ë è ç ṡ, €, Ω, µ, and ß. This way, it supports almost all European alphabets. Support for Cyrillic is planned.
New IPC-D-356 Export
Export to IPC-D-356 has been added. This enables third parties to verify the PCB correctness during production and render 3D views of Fritzing projects.
Pick and Place
We have reworked the pick and place file export. We now use the suffix ‘.xy’ for pick and place files. A ‘mount’ column was added to distinguish between through-hole and surface mount technology. The new format is ‘RefDes, Value, Package, X, Y, Rotation, Side, Mount’. The gerbv tool understands this and can render pick and place information, along with drill holes and other PCB layers.
Gerber Export
We have improved Fritzings Gerber export feature, which is crucial for turning your digital designs into physical circuit boards. The ability to determine which areas should be covered with copper (represented by color in the design) has been improved. Dashed rectangles in the silkscreen should now work as expected. Very tiny or non-existent drill holes, which could cause issues during the manufacturing process, are now ignored. Fritzing has also become smarter in maintaining the intended shapes in your design, preventing them from changing due to minor calculation errors. Additionally, the application can now better handle the thickness of lines in your design. Lastly, an issue causing distortion in some designs has been fixed, ensuring your final product matches your original design more accurately. In essence, these updates make Fritzing more reliable and accurate when preparing your designs for manufacturing.
UI Improvements
Several fixes have been implemented to ensure compatibility with dark mode. These fixes affect the Multimeter, DRC List, Inspector properties, and Search line. The Inspector has been rearranged to support scrolling and now features flexible previews. This means, icons and previews can be rendered bigger, which is important on high resolution displays. The application now supports pinch gestures. The balance between scroll wheel and gesture zoom has been improved, and the shift key can now be used for fine control. These enhancements aim to provide a more user-friendly and efficient experience for all Fritzing users.
Maintenance
- Upgraded to Boost 1.81
- Upgraded to ngspice-40
- Upgraded to Qt 6.4.3
- Upgraded to C++17
Translations
French, German, Ukrainian, and Russian are now 100% translated again. Nearly complete translations include Bulgarian, Japanese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Turkish, and Romanian. Many improvements have been made to Spanish.
Fixes and Optimizations
Numerous fixes and optimizations have been made, including rendering slowdown from zooming out, perfboard resize speed up, and many more. In addition, with some overlap, numerous issues on GitHub were solved. For more details, please visit the official release page.
Known Issues
The simulator does not work on Catalina and Big Sur. A workaround is planned. Fritzing 1.0.0 does not support 32 bit systems right now. We might add it again if there is still demand.
Download
The release is available in our downloads section. We’d love to hear what you think! Write us via our contact form or check out our forum.
Thank you for being part of the Fritzing user group!