The Fritzing project is an open hardware initiative that aims to make electronics accessible and understandable for everyone. It includes services, a community around processing and Arduino, and the Fritzing program for creating circuit diagrams, breadboard views, and circuit boards. After being in beta for a long time, the open source program has now reached version 1.0.0.
Although the program still has the beta logo on the splash screen, it can now be downloaded for 8 euros via PayPal for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This helps support the project and further development. Alternatively, users can download the sources and compile Fritzing themselves along with the components and special functions.
Buyers of previous versions will have the new version automatically activated at no additional cost. Some new features and improvements include the support for the SPICE-based circuit simulator, which was already released in the 0.9 betas. Components suitable for simulation, such as RGB LEDs and photodiodes, have also been added.
Furthermore, a new font called OCR-Fritzing has replaced OCR-A and extends the character set to include Greek letters, diacritics, and other symbols, supporting almost all European alphabets. The new export according to IPC-D-356 allows manufacturers and users to check data correctness and generate 3D representations before producing printed circuit boards. Improvements have also been made to pick and place files and Gerber export.
To learn more about the new version and its changes, visit the History Changes pages and Issues and Bug Info on GitHub.
