I wanted to make sure you’re aware of an effort to revive Fritzing, and get it’s code up to date, improve it dramatically, and otherwise take over the on-life-support project and get it up and fully functional again.
Part of this effort would be better parts libraries and parts library editing.
If Anyone from Sparkfun, Sparkfun product users, or others reading this forum is willing to help, I would highly encourage you to contact this effort at github.
Best that Fritzing diagrams die a quick death. They are misleading, confusing, usually lack component labels and lead/pin/orientation information, and very often, are just plain wrong.
Fritzing diagrams are a huge step backwards in international communication of electronic circuit ideas, and should be avoided by anyone interested in circuits.
I strongly recommend that everyone, beginners especially, learn to read and write standard schematic circuit diagrams instead, as those have served the world very well for many, many decades.
The problem with Fritzing is not just the terrible diagrams. It’s also more difficult to use. The reason the diagrams above are so bad is because Fritzing makes it so hard to do things well.
Yes, Fritzing was a very bad idea from the beginning, but beginners who wouldn’t take the time to learn to read or draw schematics thought Fritzing diagrams were “cool” and because they can look good, somehow professional. They didn’t know enough to understand how misleading and confusing such diagrams really are.
Unfortunately, some, but not all, hobby electronics suppliers jumped on the beginner bandwagon and supplied Fritzing templates of their own products. Free advertising, from one know-nothing to another, maybe even appearing on (gasp) Instructables!
Anything can look like crap when you search for the worst examples. I greatly disagree with your complaints about fritzing. When used properly it can be very helpful for wiring up small projects. As with any program if you put crap in you get crap out.
Your Binary Game Diagram fails to communicate the nature the little black things on the breadboard, and the 3-lead green thing (the potentiometer) to the right. An informative, useful diagram would make clear the nature of those components, their orientation, the precise lead identification and the relevant component values.
I take it you are not a fan of clear, unambiguous, universally understood schematic diagrams, and instead prefer shiny, misleading, improperly labeled pictures with irrelevant details.
Here is a nice simple one for you. Note the handsome USB plug presenting itself to the USB socket! To which pins is the LED connected, and is the LED polarity correct?
In your example if you knew anything about electronics you would realize the left leg is the cathode. Its shorter and has the flat side. But that obviously doesn’t fit your agenda of bashin a program and showing terrible examples.
jremington:
Ahhh, so you have to “know something about electronics” to understand that the “left leg is the cathode” on that diagram! How clever.
But wait, you forgot to answer whether the LED polarity is correct on the diagram. By your comment, it is not.
You are really grasping at straws here to put down a program that does the job for most needs.
You would need to know something about electronics to also know which way to wire the LED following your schematic. As in your fritzing diagram anyone can also make a wrong schematic. Just because it is in a different format doesn’t make it correct.
A schematic may be better when looking at the wiring of televison circuit board. But when someone is just hooking up an accelerometer breakout and some buttons to an arduino a fritzing diagram will be easier for them to understand and duplicate on their breadboard or protoboard.
It all depends on your target market also. When I create a guide Im expecting the user to have minimal knowledge so a fritzing diagram corresponds fairly easy to the example pictures I provide and can be easily replicated on their breadboard.
