October–November 2024 Development Update

Web demo, new logo, EasyEDA Specctra DSN/SES import/export, contracts-try Rust crate, GUI improvements.

Just like in the previous update, we have spent the last two months on infrastructure tasks and smaller features for the Topola PCB router. Most notably, we have now have an online Web demo and a new logo.

Web demo

Work done by Klaudia Kołakowska (Szpachlarz) and Mikołaj Wielgus (mikolaj).

We have published a pre-alpha Web demo of Topola on our website. We are doing this mostly for the convenience of translators and auditors: Topola is still too early in development to be useful for any practical PCB layouts.

Work done by Michał Stankiewicz (MStankiewiczOfficial).

We have a new logo! It is much more clean-cut than in the previous one and has a text. We may make some more adjustments to it in the future.

Topola's new logo. It consists of two parallel bow-shapes red curves and a text saying "Topola".

EasyEDA Specctra DSN/SES import/export

Implemented by Tomasz Cichoń (tomec) starting in commit 77c0fa2272.

Topola’s import and export for Specctra DSN and SES files are now compatible with files imported from and exported to EasyEDA.

contracts-try Rust crate

Work done by Alain Emilia Anna Zscheile (fogti) and Mikołaj Wielgus (mikolaj) in repository topola/contracts-try.

We have been maintaining our own version of the contracts library that fixes some of its critical bugs by using try blocks, a nightly Rust feature. For now, when the stable Rust channel this is configured to instead do nothing. We have spun off and published this modified version into a separate contracts-try crate.

GUI improvements

Error dialog

Implemented by Alain Emilia Anna Zscheile (fogti) in pull request #50.

To make debugging easier from the side of the user, Topola now displays a dialog displaying all the errors that have occured if loading a DSN file fails.

Implemented by Mikołaj Wielgus (mikolaj) in commit 2bc090b132.

Topola now has a basic page with online documentation, which can be accessed from Help > Online Documentation.

Changing language

Implemented by Mikołaj Wielgus (mikolaj) starting in commit 4b66e585c5.

It is now possible to change language in Topola’s graphical user interface under Preferences > Set Language.

Disabling unused menu buttons

Implemented by Alain Emilia Anna Zscheile (fogti) in pull requests #77 and #73.

When no layout is loaded, menu buttons that cannot be used are now visibly disabled.

Last modified December 17, 2024: publish December 2024 development update (84ed418)