Altium Designer 23.9.2 (47)

Harness Design Improvements

Enhanced Physical View Zoom Functionality
Zoom functionality has been enhanced when defining a physical view on the Layout Drawing. For both Solid and Wireframe styles, the Zoom value now defines the size of the model view's green bounding box in the design space, and the model view now always fits in the bounding box. Because the size of the bounding box is no longer independently definable, the Width and Height fields have been removed from the Properties panel.



Shortcuts for Placing Wires and Bundles
Shortcuts have been added for placing a wire (Shift+W) in the Wiring Diagram and a bundle (Shift+B) in the Layout Drawing.

Platform Improvements

License Management UI Enhancements
The updated License Management view includes a number of enhancements in this release.

- License type "labels" have been added to quickly (and visually) distinguish between licenses in the listing.


- The Search field and the sorting control now display when there are more than seven licenses in the listing.


Data Management Improvements

Ability to Open a Manufacturer Part in Octopart
The menu associated with a manufacturer part (a part choice, an alternative in the Manufacturer Part Search panel, or a solution in an ActiveBOM document) now includes not only an option to open this part in the Manufacturer Part Search panel but also an option to open a page for this part in the Octopart site in your browser. Click the drop-down menu icon at the right of the part name to access the command.


Ability to Migrate from SVN to Git
When Altium Designer is connected to an Enterprise Server Workspace and a design project is stored in an SVN repository managed through the Workspace's Version Control Service, you can now migrate this project from the SVN repository to the Workspace's built-in Git repository (Versioned Storage). To do this, open the project from the Workspace in Altium Designer, right-click its entry in the Projects panel, then select the History & Version Control » Migrate Project to Altium Versioned Storage command from the context menu. Alternatively, click the Migrate to Server Versioned Storage button in the Project Options dialog.


After following the prompts, which include making a final VCS commit, the project will be migrated to the version control of the Workspace Git repository.

Importer/Exporter Improvements

OrCAD and Allegro Import Improvements
This release delivers a number of key improvements and fixes in relation to the import of OrCAD and Allegro design files into Altium Designer. These include:

- Support for customized port connectors defined in OrCAD design schematics.
- Parameters defined in the title block of an OrCAD schematic are now treated/behave as true document parameters.
- Components on OrCAD schematics now faithfully keep their fill coloring and comment placement on the generated Altium Designer schematics.
- When importing an Allegro .dra file, SMD pads are now imported correctly as Simple (rather than Full Stack), with correct sizing presented in the Properties panel.
- Import of an Allegro .brd file that has been created in v17.4 and then saved in 17.2 format (the same version as that of the Extracta installation) will now complete successfully.

Schematic
52260 In some cases, extra junctions would appear when moving some objects on a schematic sheet.
56188 In some cases when working with a schematic document, the error "EIntfCastError: Interface not supported" would be encountered.
56320 In some cases when working with a schematic document, an Access Violation (at address 000000014B336E58 in module "AdvSch.dll") would be encountered.
PCB
53317 In generated ODB++ and Gerber X2 output for a specific design, the drill layers with microvias were incorrect for a panelized board with mixed layers.
55466 In some cases, Altium Designer would randomly and periodically freeze when performing various, different actions within the PCB Editor. (BC:20831)
55895 There was a considerable performance slowdown when adding larger numbers of stitching vias (>100,000) to a board.
56339 Changing X/Y values for a pad on an overlay layer (or the Drill Guide/Drill Drawing layer) would change the pad in the design space, but show as 0, 0 in the Properties panel. (BC:21443).
56357 A false clearance violation would occur between regular and custom shape pads when the center axis of the regular pad coincided with the edge coordinate of the custom pad shape. (BC:21381)
56744 For a specific panelized PCB, a placed drill table was not showing blind and buried vias.
56752 Vias with mixed-layer structure (blind, buried) were incorrectly rendered for a panelized PCB, but correct for the source PCB.
56772 For a design including backdrills starting from the middle of the board (using a multi-lamination process), incorrect pad sizes were being generated in Gerber and ODB++ data.
56786 When running a DRC for a Matched Lengths or Length rule from the PCB Rules And Violations panel, violations were not being presented if xSignals were used in a rule. (BC:20474)
56842 It was not possible to save a custom-defined material to the Altium Material Library as while a new row could be added and defined, the Save and OK buttons were disabled. (BC:21547)
56930 With the PCB.EngineX.ClearanceRule option enabled (in Advanced Settings), duplicating a design rule would lead to a sizable number of false violations being detected by the DRC.
57096 With PCB.Pad.CustomMasks enabled, Custom/Chamfered Rectangular pads placed on Paste or Solder Mask layers were not displayed. Sometimes, such pads would transform into tiny round pads.
57137 When using the Section View feature, the view planes were not being displayed.
57227 In some cases when using the Update from PCB Libraries feature, choosing a footprint to view comparison data would result in an Access Violation (in module "X2.EXE"). (BC:21739)
Multi-board
55587 Lines were not being displayed for the title block area after applying a template to a multi-board schematic document. (BC:21246)
Draftsman
51779 For a specific design involving a complex board shape, it was not possible to place a radial dimension on the Board Assembly View. (BC:8758)
57121 In some cases when trying to edit the section line for a Board Section View, the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" would be encountered. (BC:21652)
Harness Design
53781 Cross-probing from a message in the Messages panel to the corresponding object within the harness design was not functioning.
55469 When defining a physical view on the Layout Drawing, zoom functionality has been enhanced and Width and Height are no longer independently definable.
55819 Shortcuts added for placing a wire (Shift+W) in the Wiring Diagram and a bundle (Shift+B) in the Layout Drawing.
56434 After updating a connector in the Wiring Diagram from its source library and importing changes to the Layout Drawing, objects in the associated bundle were lost.
56464 Dimension locations were not being updated on the .HarDwf document after moving connection points on the Layout Drawing and importing the changes.
56625 The Validate button at the top of the Projects panel can now be used to run an ERC for the active harness project.
56745 The Parameters section was missing in the Properties panel for a selected connection point object in the Layout Drawing.
Platform
56425 Added license type 'labels' to be able to quickly (and visually) distinguish between licenses in the listing on the License Management page.
56636 The search field (and related sorting control) now appear only when there are more than 7 licenses in the listing.
56802 The main Project menu when no document is open now presents the same commands as those when the Home page is the active document, along with the Project Activities sub-menu.
56803 In some cases, the error "System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" would be encountered.
57285 URLs to the Altium Store were being generated incorrectly when following links to renew a license or add seats, from within the License Management page.
Data Management
56118 When generating a PDF of schematic prints from an OutJob file, any objects placed over a graphic image in a source schematic would appear distorted in the PDF.
56142 The error message displayed when the software requires a Workspace connection to check the Part Choices List control mode was not very clear.
56411 It is now possible to migrate a design project from using built-in SVN to built-in Git for a connected Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server.
56555 Updated the menu for a part choice/alternative to add a command to open the page for it on the Octopart site.
56596 The Tasklist panel is no longer visible when connected to a Workspace with Standard or Pro level of access.
56633 It was not possible for a non-admin user to edit part choices for a component, even when they were assigned operational permission to do so.
56681 It was not possible to release a component carted (along with template) from another Workspace, when that component template pointed to an unavailable lifecycle definition.
56713 When placing a component from the Explorer panel (using context menu Place), the symbol description will be used instead of the component description if the latter contains the " character.
56719 In some cases when accessing the history for a component through the Explorer panel, an Access Violation (in module EDesignData.DLL) would be encountered.
56760 When connected to a Workspace, use of the F5 keyboard shortcut did not refresh the content of the Components panel. (BC:21521)
56830 Configured column widths in the Library Importer (in Advanced mode) were resetting to defaults if changing Component Type or the type of components being viewed was changed. (BC:21528)
56861 After editing (reworking) a component as part of a Part Request workflow, the workflow form is not updated with that later revision.
56866 When using the new Variant Manager, closing and reopening it would result in the variant columns being displayed in reverse order.
57077 In some cases when creating a new component in a Workspace, the Parameters region of the Properties panel, when defining a new symbol, was missing. (BC:21633)
57172 An unnamed comparison type was being displayed on the Comparator tab of the Project Options dialog. (BC:21668)
Import/Export
46680 When importing an Allegro .dra file using the Import Wizard, SMD pads would come in as Full Stack instead of Simple, and incorrect sizing was being displayed in the Properties panel.
54998 In some cases when importing a KiCad design, the error "System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" would be encountered. (BC:21379)
55763 When importing an OrCAD design using the Import Wizard, parameters in the title block of a generated schematic document were behaving as text strings rather than true document parameters.
55773 When importing an OrCAD design using the Import Wizard, there was no support for customized port connectors on a generated schematic document.
55806 In some cases, junctions were not being displayed immediately on schematic documents after importing an OrCAD design.
56469 When importing an OrCAD design using the Import Wizard, component comments were being incorrectly positioned on a generated schematic document.
56472 When importing an OrCAD design using the Import Wizard, some components were being filled with the wrong color on a generated schematic document.
56850 Import of an Allegro .brd file that has been created in v17.4 and then saved in 17.2 format (the same version as that of the Extracta installation) will now complete successfully.
57020 When attempting to import a specific Xpedition library using the Import Wizard, a crash would be encountered.
Simulation
56292 In a specific case, a SimView document was not being deleted after it was closed, causing a memory leak.
56556 For some components in the Simulation Generic Components library, their descriptions contained typographical errors.
56579 Altium Designer would freeze after changing the Time Delay value for a placed VSRC component (with 'Pulse' stimulus type) to 10ms.