Have you ever wished that you could gain more hard-drive space?
It just might be possible... to a limited extent.
When you create shapes, you may be consuming 30 - 50% more drive space than you need to. Stated differently, it may be possible to reduce the file size of your shapes by 30 - 50%.
Got your interest? Just how is it possible to reduce the file size of a shape (other than leaving out half of the pins)?
I'll tell you how...
Find a large connector or PGA (pin grid array) shape. Copy it to the worksurface. (WARNING: Be sure you are only working on a copy of the real shape... just in case.)
Next, attribute the shape and write down the file size. View into the shape. If it is like most shapes, it will have a square pad for pin 1, and pins 2 - ?? will be round pads. You will also probably have a couple of mounting holes (on connectors).
Pick one of the round pads and attribute it. Write down what pads are used to make up the pad stack. Next, view the default attributes of the pins for the shape. (The pads that are used when you 'add pins'.)
Do the default pads match the pads used in the shape? If they do, chances are that this shape has already been 'optimized'. If they do not, change the default pads to match the pads used. Save & Close.
Now attribute the shape again. You should see a file size that is smaller than before.
If the shape was already optimized, you may want to see the detrimental effects by changing the default pads to some random pad sizes, and then saving, closing and attributing the shape. You will notice a larger file size.
How is it that the default pad sizes affect the shape design? It happens as a result of the way that Cadnetix stores the pad information in the 'pinsZ6att' file. Cadnetix uses the 'default' pads for all of the pads (which means that they do not need to store the name of the pads for each pin), unless you change them in the shape, in which case they store the full name of the pads in the pins file. As a result, the file size is smaller... especially on large PGA's and connectors.
Many times, shapes will get unoptimized when we are creating it. We will add all of the pins, and then change the default pads to the size needed for connector mounting holes. We will add these, and save & close. We do not realize the problem we just created. Another way it can happen is when we edit an existing shape... changing the pad sizes. These new pad sizes will now not match the default pad sizes.
While this may not seem to amount to much in the larger scheme of things, you will notice a speedup in file I/O when you open up that large shape to edit it.