New fritzing release 0.9.3b!

Fritzing Software

Finally, here's a fresh release of fritzing, coming with a nice set of new features. Head on over to fritzing.org/download to grab it. github parts repo class= Here's what's new:

Continuously updated parts library

The fritzing parts library is now stored online at github and is automatically checked for updates on every launch. This means you will now get new parts (or fixes) in the moment when they are created. No need to wait for the next Fritzing release to get new parts anymore! And we are actually using git itself inside of fritzing to do these updates, so this opens up many other use cases in the future, like for example direct user contributions.

Critical bug fix for messed up PCB traces

Many of you have been plagued by an annoying bug that occasionally caused PCB traces to get loose and flip around. It proved to be really tricky to track down but it's finally fixed, sigh.. Plus, the fix will recover any files that have been mangled by this bug. :)

High-DPI display support

Fritzing now looks properly on High-DPI (aka Retina) displays on all platforms. It's not really high-res but scaling nicely according to the higher screen resolution. No more eye squinting with your fancy 4K screen!

Easier handling of self-created parts

Custom / self-made parts and bins used to be stored in a hidden location on your hard drive, which made it really annoying to edit them with an external tool such as Illustrator or a text editor. They are now conveniently located in your ~/Documents/Fritzing folder for easy access!

Load/Save uncompressed fritzing files (.fz)

You can now alternatively save your fritzing sketches as an uncompressed set of files (.fz plus additional custom parts etc). This allows for proper versioning with systems like git or svn. For regular use, we still recommend using the standard .fzz format, which by the way is just a zip bundle of these files. Thanks to Sergio Oller (zeehio) for this contribution!

File type associations & icons

fzz, fzb, fzp, etc. now also have shiny file icons on Mac OS X (thanks to scribblemaniac) and Ubuntu Linux (thanks to el-j).  To get them to actually show up, you will need to wait a little on Mac for them to override the cache, and on Linux  you have to run the install-fritzing.sh script.

New Parts

Loads of new parts, many of them contributed, and all  revised by Fabian Althaus (el-j): Lots of new SparkFun parts, thanks to support from SparkFun: Contributed parts:

New/updated Translations

  • Czech, thanks to Vasekdvor
  • German, thanks to Atalanttore and aknoerig
  • Italian, thanks to Gianpaolo Macario
  • Polish, thanks to jacekjaros
  • Portuguese, thanks to Bruno Ramalhete
  • Spanish, thanks to bazza
  • Turkish, thanks to Kaan Özdinçer
  • Vietnamese, thanks to Duyệt Đinh Xuân
..and various smaller improvements and fixes, including contributions from Duane Johnson, Luke Benstead, Nicolas Raynaud, scribblemaniac and duff2013. Thanks!