What are your top requests for 2018?

First of all, thank you for everything you're doing at SnapEDA! I've been using it for the past year and it has saved me a ton of time.
That being said, I'd like to see better filtering of parts in the search results. Often times, I want to filter down by package type or manufacturer. That would make it much easier to choose parts for my designs.

Thank you for making this fantastic product!
Similar to @Elictro, I would like to filter search results by which ones have a model and footprint ready to use. That's the main reason that I come to SnapEDA and is very often the deciding factor on selecting one component over another. I also make that decision on how "popular" that component is. I don't know if you can have a popularity rating. Right now I assume that if you have the footprint and symbol, then it is popular, I also check stock levels at DigiKey and Mouser to determine "popularity".

Anyway, I'm really loving InstaBuild. But why is it only available on some parts and not others? Give us the tools to create parts for you and we'll help you build your database!

I wonder if you could have a reduced-fee InstaPart if we create it using your tools (like InstaBuild or similar) and someone at SnapEDA just reviews the design and gives it their blessing?

> What features or improvements would you like to see on SnapEDA in 2018

I'm filled with rage after multiple attempts to "easily" create parts with InstaBuild. Here's why:

* PDF rendered to image is too low res, creating all kinds of problems with OCR.Quick&dirty implementation additionally messed up by bad decisions.

* when you scroll while selecting, the selection endpoint gets offset.

* grid edit is horribly slow and sketchy, scrolling stops working at some point and the edit delegates suck. Do away with that stupid combo box and go for auto completion (let the user type "o" for output, enter to confirm and jump to next row

* provide "go back" function to allow changes

* user should be in control on which side the pins are placed, not "input" "output" or "power" because "input/output" is ambiguous and e.g. opto isolators have power pins on BOTH sides. Not sure if I'm overlooking that feature, would be too stupid to just leave it away. Add column for left / right / top / bottom placement hints

* multiple symbols for one device
don't just stuff everything in one symbol, that's totally not cool. optional column for symbol number recommended.

Btw. I made an ADS8584 symbol, logged in and tried to go back to retrieve it but that session was gone by then.
You owe me one ADS8584 symbol.

Not cool, SnapEDA. Not cool.

Funky007,

I have an idea to solve the OCR issue you mentioned with the letters<->number mixup. I will ask our PM to investigate an improvement there.

For the library management, I think there's a KiCad community member building a system like that using the SnapEDA API: https://github.com/turdusmerula/kipartman.

Also, here is the ADS8584SIPM that we created for you! https://www.snapeda.com/parts/ADS8584SIPM/Texas%20Instruments/view-part/

We didn't split it into sections since we weren't sure of your exact preferences, but hopefully it's a good starting point!

Hi Funky007,

This is super helpful feedback. Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

For the first point, I have not heard any issues with using the OCR component. The only issue I have heard is when people are not aware they need to highlight the *outside* grid lines too. I have asked our software team to include better communication about this point. Are you highlighting the outside grid lines - do you think this might be part of the issue?

For the offset issue, I was able to reproduce that when I scrolled down the page. Thanks for letting us know - I have filed a bug report on this so our team can be aware.

Re: grid edit, "go back", placement of pins, and symbol sections - very helpful feedback and noted.

For the issue about you losing the ADS8584. I'm sorry to hear about that - we explicitly state that you must login if you want to save the file before building. I'll share with my team so we can make this more clear and/or somehow save the state of the file and session about signin. In the meantime, I have asked our team to build this for you as a thank you for all your feedback - they'll notify you when it's ready. =)

Thanks again so much for sharing so much valuable feedback. I think you make excellent points about how we can further improve our new feature InstaBuild. As a small startup, it's very helpful in us prioritizing our resources so we really appreciate it.

- Natasha

Hi Natasha,

glad you're looking into it.
re OCR: try ADS8584SIPM ds p.4 as a test case. I know text in pdfs is often represented by isolated letters or paths so it's 'inconvenient' to deal with. Main problem seems to be letter <-> number mixups so no luck with whitelisting.Maybe biasing towards a specific font is supported?

Another thought, maybe SnapEDA can consider developing a proper library management for KiCad, seeing some synergies there :-)

Thanks for the effort.

Haven't found the time to play around with server side OCR to come to an informed conclusion.
Recently stumbling upon datasheets that do not have outlined grid cells in their pin assignment tables made me realize this is a far bigger issue.

For evenly spaced cells allowing the user to ovelay an interactive grid would work, for uneven spacing perhaps allowing to add vertical and horizontal break lines with preview during hover may be worth testing.

Since this step extracts the ground truth for subsequent steps I really wish this'd be simple and robust.