[HN Gopher] Show HN: VisCircuit - A Note-Taking Website for Elec...
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Show HN: VisCircuit - A Note-Taking Website for Electronics and
Circuits
Hi, everyone. I created a note-taking website for electronics and
circuits where you can draw circuit diagrams and write text notes
at the same time. I am a Digital IC designer, and I self-study
different types of analog and digital circuits a lot. However, I
found a problem. Circuits have many different architectures and are
hard to memorize due to numerous experiential tips. I want to
document what I learn in my note app, but I found there is no
method for me to easily draw circuit and block diagrams alongside
text notes. This issue has bothered me for a long time, from my
master's school to my current working life. I decided to solve it,
so I created a note-taking website specifically for electronics and
circuits, called VisCircuit. With VisCircuit, you can easily draw
circuit diagrams, block diagrams, and write text notes
simultaneously. I have already used it for two weeks and have noted
down things I find hard to remember, such as SRAM, amplifier
circuits, and PCB components of Arduino and Raspberry Pi. I found
this tool really useful for memorizing knowledge about electronics
and circuits. Currently, I have opened VisCircuit for alpha
testing, and I want to let some people use it and give me feedback.
Feel free to try it, and I will really appreciate what you think
about this project. Leave any suggestions for improvement. Thank
you very much.
Author : darrenyaoyaoyao
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-07-17 16:46 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (viscircuit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (viscircuit.com)
| jimmyswimmy wrote:
| Website was not pleasant to use on mobile, I couldn't really see
| much, and the demo was definitely not mobile friendly. At least
| on a pixel 6.
|
| I like the idea. I take it as an all in one lab notebook for
| electronics. You might consider adding in timing diagram tools,
| and an easy way to copy/paste scope shots or similar, but this
| seems useful.
|
| Being clear about ownership of information posted to the site is
| pretty important. I'd hate to see my design data shared without
| permission or used to train your algorithm.
|
| I've been wishing for years for a way to draw circuits as easily
| as I do on a whiteboard. Schematic capture doesn't have to be as
| miserable as experience as it is, but I don't have the time to
| make that till. Maybe you do.
|
| I'll try to remember this for next time I'm at a computer, the
| Idea is pretty cool.
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| First, I pretty sorry that VisCircuit is unfriendly on mobile
| now. I currently focus on desktop web development and didn't
| spend too much time on mobile. For other feedbacks: 1. Timing
| diagram: It is a great advice! Thanks. Timing diagram is
| important for digital design. I wrote it down and plan to do in
| the future. 2. Data privacy: I totally agree, so I take data
| privacy at the first priority issue to make sure users data
| will be protected correctly. 3. I agree with you that the world
| needs a tool to draw circuits as easily as on a whiteboard.
| During my work, I always use PowerPoint to draw circuits, but
| it is not good enough. I will work hard to make VisCircuit an
| easy-to-use circuit diagram editor.
|
| Thanks for your feedback! Welcome to try it at a computer.
| analog31 wrote:
| I like it, and I wonder about two things. First is making it into
| a plug-in for Jupyter notebooks, which is presently my go-to note
| taking app.
|
| Second is adding simulation.
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback! 1. I wrote it down. I have plan to
| make my tool as plug-in for different text editor tool
| including VsCode or Obsidian. Now, I know someone want it on
| Jupyter notebooks. 2. Simulation is on my roadmap too. Even
| though, simulation is much hard than a note-taking tool, I will
| try it.
|
| Thanks for your feedback!
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm guessing VSCode is a good place to start. There's a lot
| of recent movement towards using VSCode as the preferred
| environment for working on Jupyter notebooks.
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| No problem. Thanks for your feedback!
| Archit3ch wrote:
| > Second is adding simulation.
|
| Can you run https://github.com/dvhx/ngspicejs in a Jupyter
| notebook?
| etimberg wrote:
| Very cool project. Way back in the day I was on the team that
| built https://www.multisim.com/ so I've got some experience in
| EDA tool design.
|
| A couple of things that I noticed at first:
|
| 1. Placing components is rather annoying. I tried to drag and
| drop but placing in the center of the view makes them hard to
| find 2. Automatic wire routing routed wires on top of symbols and
| component pins 3. Delete should be wired up to the delete key as
| well 4. By wiring pin to pin but overlapping wires it can appear
| that things are electrically connected when they're not if the
| routing places wires on top of each other
|
| I liked how the delete cascades work. It usually takes a lot of
| patience to figure that logic out correctly
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback! I think an EDA tool is much harder
| too implement.
|
| 1. Drag and drop is a really useful feature! Thanks for your
| advice. I use it everyday and not notice the annoying. 2.
| Automatic wire routing is a feature I try to improve in the
| future. 3. No problem. 4. Wire interconnection is an issue. I
| will think more about how to represent it.
|
| Overall, thanks you very much. You feedback is really useful
| for me.
| purple-leafy wrote:
| That's really cool! As an ex EE turned Software Eng this is
| something I'll look back to when I start getting into electronics
| again :)
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| Thanks. I am an ex EE turned Software Eng too, but I switch
| back to EE again. That's the reason why I really want to solve
| the problem :)
| i_don_t_know wrote:
| This looks nice! A couple of things I've noticed:
|
| 1 - It's hard to wire things up. I keep missing the terminal and
| I'm getting the selection tool instead.
|
| 2 - Add values and units to components, for example, when you
| drop a resistor it'd be nice to be able to set it to 10 Ohm (and
| show the Omega symbol).
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback.
|
| 1. Some people also complain that it's hard to wire things, and
| I will think about a solution. Thanks! 2. It is also an item on
| my TODO list. I have a text block on the whiteboard as an
| alternative. I put this on my TODO list because I am afraid the
| position of the unit label is hard to control. It may overlap
| with surrounding components, so I currently use a free position
| text block instead. I will think about this topic more.
|
| Thanks for the feedback.
| oslis wrote:
| Wow, VisCircuit looks like a fantastic tool for anyone diving
| into electronics and circuits! The visual note-taking approach
| could really simplify complex concepts. Has anyone here tried it
| out? I'd love to hear your experiences and see if it stands up to
| more traditional methods or other tools like CircuitLab. Plus,
| any tips on getting started with it would be super helpful.
| Cheers!
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Overall looks good!
|
| I would note that it would drive me mad that I cannot get a gate
| resistor on a mosfet to be perfectly inline with the gate. I
| think the mosfet symbol has to be slightly modified so all
| terminals click to the grid.
|
| Seems the BJT has this issue too.
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| Hi! Do you mean the MOSFET and BJT cannot perfectly align with
| the background grid? I really want to solve your problem, but I
| cannot fully understand the issue you are facing. If it's not
| too much trouble, could you join our Discord and share a
| screenshot with me?
|
| I really don't want to upset you. Here is the discord link:
| https://discord.com/invite/TfwZ3hH2D2 or you can email the
| screenshot to me: darren.huang@viscircuit.com
|
| Thanks you very much
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| https://ibb.co/PTrk9M9
|
| I am running chrome on win10, 1920x1080 res
| darrenyaoyaoyao wrote:
| I fixed it. Thanks a lot! It only happens on the Demo page.
| Inside the circuit note, there is no such problem. I forgot
| to change the configuration on the Demo page. Anyway, there
| is no such problem now. Thanks a lot!
| epiccoleman wrote:
| That is really cool! I would have loved to have something like
| this back in college. (Not sure it would have prevented me from
| failing EE courses, lol, but maybe)
| JohnFen wrote:
| Do you have any plans to release a non-web-based (or at least
| self-hosted) version of this? It looks useful enough that I could
| start to depend on it, but I don't want to grow to depend on
| something that is on the ephemeral web.
| abmmgb wrote:
| That looks really cool very sleek! Sorry fi I mossed this but cna
| you export / download your notes?
| ktallett wrote:
| I have absolutely no use for it currently but I love the layout
| and design of this. Fantastic work!
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