Altium 18!

[JohnsonMiller]

Hi Guys,

After time that Altium announced is it still in Beta state or moved to final?
How is the software status, still buggy or we can trust it?

Please share your experiences, I am planning to switch. Does it worth?

BR,

[Luca]

I'm trying 18.0.9 that i'ts much better than 18.0 but the last release should be 18.0.12.
I dont know if are ready for free trial download, i'm waiting the responce from Altium
Regards, Luca

[robertferanec]

I think, AD18 was officially released.

I have not used AD18 for a design yet, so I am not the best person to answer. However, if you decide to move to AD18, be prepared - they moved some buttons/menus around and you will spent some time by trying to find some stuff. The most difficult is, when you try to search on internet, there is not much information about AD18 and you usually end up on help page for previous AD versions. So, it can be frustrating.

I have not noticed anything special why I should immediately move to AD18. We actually still do a lot of stuff in AD15 - we know all the bugs, how AD15 behaves and what we need to be careful about. Working in AD15 and staying with one version is for us much faster and easier than keep moving between versions (the last great feature which we use are xSignals, so that is something worth to upgrade, otherwise we do not really need any other latest features). I did not notice any special advantages of moving to AD18. I know, the speed should be the biggest advantage, but maybe it is my computer, I do not see AD18 to be faster comparing to the previous AD versions (I have Intel i7 CPU + plenty of DDR, even previous versions are working just fine). Also, other advantage should be mutiboard design - we do not really need this feature.

[k.ifantidis]

Hello there!
I've just upgraded to AD18 today. As you mention Robert, they moved some buttons, shortcuts seems to be the same, UI changed to black and i think it will take me some time to find and note some stuff like prefs, panel view and exploring the output file. When I'll finish i will let you know more.
Regards, Kostas.

[robertferanec]

Please, let us know then Kostas. I am also interested to know.

[JohnsonMiller]

Hi,

The 18.1.6 is released but in Beta state!
I feel uncomfortable, more than 6month from initial release but still Beta!

BR,

[robertferanec]

JohnsonMiller, how do you know it is still Beta?

[JohnsonMiller]

Hi Robert,
From file name in distribution: Altium Designer 18.1.6 Build 161 Beta

[robertferanec]

Interesting. I have double checked my AD18, the About page says just Version 18.1.6, so I am not sure.