Hey gang, I'm working on my first few layouts in Altium, having completed one. I was hoping I could get a few tips on what (in my experience with OrCAD) were relatively easy things to do. Please chime in with whatever bits you have knowledge of.
1) Is there a way to force the display to show 'hollow pads'?
Instead of filling a pad with solid copper which obscures trace endpoints, is there a way in the display only, to show the pads as outlines?
2) Is there a way to lock into 'routing mode'?
I am finding it very tedious to have to choose between a trace I want to modify and whatever other obstacles might be in the vicinity when I am trying to route a board. I get the little pop-up that lets me choose the track I want, but if I'm routing, why would I want to select a component, a pad, or an obstacle? I find this wastes a lot of time and would like to know if there is a dedicated 'routing mode' so I don't have to type P,T every time I want to grab lay down a new trace.
3) How can I SELECT an entire trace (not just track/segment)?
CTRL+Click highlights, but does not allow me to edit the trace properties through the PCB Inspector. And I know I can shift+click to grab each track individually, but this can be very tedious if, for example, I just want to delete, or change the width of a long, multi-segment trace.
4) How can I ensure components are NOT inadvertently modified during placement/routing?
I have not found in Altium the equivalent of OrCADs 'Allow Editing of Footprints' which can be set to On or OFF. Is there a way in Altium to ensure I dont accidentally grab an object that's part of a footprint and move or modify it, thus messing up the footprint? In other words, 99.9% of the time I have no use for editing footprints once I'm in the layout, I should be able to turn 'edit footprints' off.
Being only a few months into my experience, these are some basic things that would save me a lot of headache and help ensure I'm not introducing errors into my design.
Thank you for any input
Raylon