Today we released a new Fritzing version, 0.8.0. Download it here. In previous releases of Fritzing, you could only look at the board from above, in the new release you can also look at the board from below. Furthermore, you can now place any part–THT or SMD–on either side of a double-sided PCB.

To control the point-of-view, we added a new button to the toolbar. Just click to toggle  the viewpoint from above to below, and back again.

Here is an example sketch, first viewed from above:

Now, after toggling the button, viewed from below:

You use the current point-of-view to determine on which side of a board a new part or trace will be placed--if you are currently viewing from below, then dragging in a THT part from the Parts Bin means you are pushing the part in from underneath.

You can also use the Both/Top/Bottom activation toggle to control the side on which a new part or trace is placed. So even if you are viewing from below, if only the top side is active, new parts will be placed on the top.

But don't worry if you get it wrong or change your mind--the Inspector now has a "layer" widget to let you change whether a part is placed on the top or bottom side.

And that leads us to another feature of this release. The Inspector now has a 'placement' section that contains a number of controls. You can use these controls to set a part's location, rotation, lock state, and top-or-bottom state. (In addition to the location control, we have added some basic alignment functions--top, left, right, bottom, center--to the Part menu.)

Inspector styling has been improved so that it's clearer when a control is disabled, and when a combo-box will accept text entry (as opposed to being a pure drop-down).

You will find that it's generally easier to select parts that are underneath other parts, in both PCB and Schematic views (and in PCB view, switching the point-of-view gives you another way to reach hard-to-click items).

Thanks to sponsorship from Analog Devices Inc., rotation and flip are now enabled for all parts in Schematic view. Additionally, part text elements in Schematic view will preserve their orientation under these transforms. Stay tuned for some other ADI-sponsored features in upcoming releases.

You can find a more complete list of changes here.

We hope you will enjoy version 0.8.0.

-- Your Fritzing Team

PS. Inevitably with all the changes, there are going to be new bugs. Since the Forum is currently in a transitional state, please use our issue tracker to report problems. Take a quick look to see whether your issue has already been reported (and add a comment if you have something new to relate). If you don't see a relevant existing issue, then click the "new issue" button to make a new report.

The Open Knowledge Foundation is organising the EnergyHack Berlin hackathon this weekend as a contribution to the “energy revolution” everyone is talking about in Germany, and we are also sponsoring this event.

All hardware hacks that will be documented using Fritzing and shared online will get free PCBs from our Fab Service.

This will be a very exciting opportunity to use public big data and combine it with small data collected with IoT devices. If you are a tinkerer, a developer, a designer or just interested, just join us and spread the word!

Expertenworkshop für den Hackday “EnergyHack” from Open Knowledge Foundation on Vimeo.

… but just for some maintenance, we are back very soon :) Wegen Wartungsarbeiten musste unsere Website kurzzeitig abgeschalten werden. Lang wird es nicht dauern :)

DE: Zurzeit kommt es mir so vor, als ob ich gar nicht mehr zum arbeiten komme. Der Mai war gespickt mit Feier- und Brückentagen und dazu kam unserer Umzug.

Im Moment sitze ich gerade in unserem neuen Werkstattraum. Auf der Tischplatte und dem Boden bildet sich gerade wieder die Baustaubschicht, die ich gerade noch beseitigt hatte, während im Nebenraum ein Arbeiter mit einem Bohrhammer Heizungsrohre fixiert. Unsere zukünftige Küche, in der gerade mehrere Bauarbeiter damit beschäftigt sind den Putz von den Wänden zu schlagen (offene Klinkerwände sind in Berlin gerade Mode), ist noch mit einer Gipskartonwand von unserem Büro getrennt. Die Toilette ist nur über den Hof erreichbar.

Sicherlich wird es noch etwas dauern, bis wir uns hier zuhause fühlen, es geht aber voran und das Ende ist absehbar.

EN: There was not much time to work the last days. The whole May was full of public holidays, bridging days and of course our move.

This minute I’m sitting in our new workshop. The builder’s dust layer on my desk and the floor I just cleaned reappears while a drill hammer worker is retaining the heating pipes. Our future kitchen, where some builders are currently detaching  the render from the wall (this days, blank brick walls are in vogue in Berlin), is still closed with drywall. The toilet is only reachable through the court.

Certainly it will take a bit until we feel home but we are looking forward optimistically.

Codemotion is not just another tech conference where developers and engineers attend to compare tools and argue about what’s best and what’s cool. It is a meeting point for many disciplines, hardware meets software and design in a unique and powerful combination.

We were invited to present Fritzing in the “Makers” category and we gladly accepted to do so. Fritzing was created in the first place to close the gap between creatives and electronics, to take away the fear of electrons and to transform physical computing mystery into creative material just like any text, graph or animation. We believe that Codemotion is one of the best meeting points for all people who use Fritzing, or should be using it.

Come and join us on Saturday, May 11th at the HTW in Berlin, the talk is at 16:10. You can see the page by clicking on the image below.

We are looking forward to meet you there and put a face on your projects and PCBs.

Our friend Wolf who is doing a talk about FabLabs will sell our Starter Kits at his stand friday and saturday, and our friend Stefania will do a talk about teaching kids technology.