Eagle Cut 2.3.0 has quite a few changes, so let’s start with some bug fixes, then we’ll get into the good stuff – changes and new features:
First, the Cut Manager was updated updated to 1.2:
- Faster cut queue listing
- Works better over slow lines
- Extra controls added in Eagle Cut to view the plot queue & cut manager
- Manual Refresh button added in case you don’t see your queue
- Slight lag added when clicking on an item in the queue
- Better handling of removing complete cut from queue
Eagle Cut:
- Hitting Plot on a custom template no longer looks like nothing happened
- Hitting plot on any template now
- Eagle Cut starts out maximized
- More items load from the CDN now, speeding up a couple things
- Plot to Cut Manager is no longer a primarily blank screen
Changes And New Features:
Plot Queue Display
At first it may seem redundant, but a Plot Queue screen was added back into Eagle Cut it’s self. It’s partially part of the upcoming MacOS releases (since it doesn’t use an external cut program), but it also helps new people see that, yes, something happened when they hit cut. For some reason, Windows doesn’t always like to bring the Cut Manager to the front when a plot is purchased, so this pops up inside Eagle Cut. You can see what’s in your queue (and, in the not too distant future, you’ll also see some extra information for each item in the queue) and open the Cut Manager from there.
The Cut Manager was part of the reason why Eagle Cut doesn’t default to maximizing the window when it opens (so that people could see it hiding back there). Now that that’s fixed, Eagle Cut starts full screen.
Font Viewer
Now when you hit the dropdown to select a font, you no longer get a hard to read (and slow to load at times) box with a list of fonts. Instead, you’ll get a large screen with a MUCH better view of all the fonts.
This should be thought of as Phase 1 of a larger plan for handling fonts in the editor. Right now, we make use of some custom Eagle Cut fonts (stand-ins for copyrighted fonts) and Google fonts. Here you can see what’s available and select any of them to use. The next phase is to break it down a bit: that way you only load the fonts you need, and can open up the entire Google font library to chose from it to add to your needed fonts (think of them as Favorites) rather than having to scroll through them all.
The Frameworks
Eagle Cut is built on quite a few pieces of technology. If you look closely at some of the UI items in this release, you’ll notice some slightly different fonts and layouts. We’ve been running on the same frameworks for about 6 years now, so it’s all getting ripped out piece by piece and replaced with more modern versions. With each of the upcoming releases, old stuff will be replaced. One of the big things that changes is eventually it’s going to be MUCH faster to install updates for Eagle Cut.
Installer
Just a minor thing: after installing, the installer has an option to launch the application immediately.