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Horizon EDA

DESIGN
Velocity0.0

Integrated electronic design automation suite for PCB design

horizon-eda.org ↗

Horizon EDA ships one feature release a year and spends the rest fixing what it broke.

edapcb-designeditor-ergonomicsslow-cadenceexport-workflows
◆Current state
Horizon EDA runs a slow, deliberate cadence: roughly one named feature release per year — Kepler in 2023, Luna in 2024, Mirage in 2025 — followed by two bugfix releases in the same series. The 2.7 series added pick-and-place export save/load, polygon pad rendering performance, project pool cache updates from the editors, and parameter fixing in the package editor. Its two patch releases were crash fixes and export correctness, mostly around silkscreen and PDF output.
◆Where it's heading
The feature work tracks a single theme across all three named releases: making the editors forgiving. Undo and redo that never forgets, undo/redo of selection, sticky selection and configurable selection modifiers arrived in 2.5 and 2.6; 2.7 pushed into export workflows and rendering speed. The bugfix pattern is consistent too — most patches land in the board editor, which is where the complexity lives.
◆Prediction
On the established cadence a 2.8 feature release is due, and the recent bugfix concentration suggests export and silkscreen handling get attention in it.

◆Recent moves

  1. 8mo ago

    Second 2.7 bugfix release: silkscreen arcs and PDF export

    Six fixes concentrated in the board editor and export paths, including PDFs that were being exported at ten times scale. Corrective work on the 2.7 series with no new capability.

    View source ↗
  2. 10mo ago

    First 2.7 bugfix release: smashed silkscreen text crash

    A single crash fix when deleting smashed silkscreen text. The smallest release in the series.

    View source ↗
  3. 1y ago

    Pick-and-place export presets and faster polygon pad rendering

    The thirteenth versioned release moves the ergonomics work outward from selection into export and manufacturing handoff, with save/load for pick-and-place configuration and a reset button. Polygon pad rendering performance is the one change users on dense boards will feel immediately.

    View source ↗
  4. 2y ago

    User layers, undo/redo of selection, meson build

    User-defined board layers plus selection undo/redo and a configurable selection modifier continue the make-the-editor-forgiving arc. The switch from a plain Makefile to meson is the packaging change downstream distributors had to absorb.

    View source ↗
  5. 3y ago

    Blind and buried vias, undo/redo that never forgets

    Blind and buried via support opened Horizon EDA to denser multi-layer designs, and undo/redo that survives a pool reload set the ergonomics direction the following two releases extended.

    View source ↗