We’re happy to announce the release of a new fritzing version! It comes with a bunch of improvements on the inside and outside. Here’s the scoop:
Upgrade to Qt5
Fritzing is written on top the Qt cross-platform application framework. We have upgraded to their latest version Qt5, which brings stability and speed improvements (especially for Mac OS X users). This also enables us to port fritzing to Android, iOS, etc. – that is, in theory. We still need to give that a try. Thanks to Jonathan and contributor Rohan Lloyd!
Major part family additions
This release brings a number of new parts, especially a number of popular microcontrollers, as the result of several collaboration efforts:
- ADI analog parts, which make use of split schematics and SPICE output, a new feature sponsored by Analog Devices we will write more about soon
- Intel Galileo, sponsored by Intel Education
- Arduino Yún, supported by Arduino
- Linino One, sponsored by doghunter.org
- ChipKIT WF32, MX4 and shields, thanks to Digilent (more to come)
- Spark Core, thanks to spark community member technobly
- Atlas Scientific sensors, thanks to Atlas Scientific
- more Raspberry Pi versions (A, B, B rev2)
- Teensy 3.0/3.1, because we love it
- several contributed parts, thanks to FrodeLillerud and others
In addition, there are several new PCB shapes for Raspberry Pi, Intel Galileo, SparkCore that will make your boards look cooler. Here’s a snapshot of the Intel Galileo shield in action for the Data Monster: Finally, the usual set of bugfixes, and nicely updated translations: French (thanks to Arnold Dumas!), German (thanks to atalanttore!), Ukrainian (thanks to netavek!).
Download Fritzing 0.9.0b here. And while you’re at it, kindly consider donating. Thanks!
Well, almost 1000–certainly 900+. The image above is just a small fraction of the set of new parts available in Fritzing 0.8.1. The parts all come originally from the open source SparkFun Eagle Library (thank you SparkFun!) and the conversion was carried out partly by program, and partly by hand. You can thank our illustrator Fabian for so many beautiful breadboard view images. This new heatsink is one of my favorites:
Originally we intended to ship these parts with a new Parts Bin UI to make it easier to navigate through them all. Alas, the Fritzing project being perpetually undermanned–and the demand for these parts being so high–we decided to put off the UI work until later. So the new parts simply arrive in nine shiny new Parts Bin containers, with nine new tabs to click in the Parts Bin window. Another shortcoming is that the new parts have not been completely integrated (from a database point-of-view), so part-swapping is mostly not possible between core parts and the new parts.
But we have a good workaround for these missing features. The Parts Bin search function (the topmost tab in the Parts Bin window) is quite effective for finding parts, especially since we have added a new ‘and’ search. Just separate the terms with spaces; the image below shows an ‘and’ search for parts matching both ‘db’ and ‘25’.
The other goal we didn’t reach in this release was to enforce a single schematic-view image standard (based on a 0.1 inch grid), instead of the current hodge-podge (the majority based on a 7.5mm grid). The new parts all use the new standard, and we plan to convert the rest of the core parts in the next release or so. In the image below, examples from the old ‘standard’ are on the left, examples of the the new standard are on the right (the image is zoomed to 200%).
Despite the work we left unfinished, the addition of a thousand new parts is quite a big step forward for Fritzing. We hope you find these parts as useful as we already have.
Enjoy,
– Your Fritzing Team