What is DIYLC?
DIY Layout Creator (DIYLC in short) is freeware drawing tool developed with help of a large online community of DIY electronics enthusiasts. It incorporates many ideas that came from people using older versions of the application. The goal is to provide a simple interface and enough power to let the user draw schematics, board/chassis layouts and guitar wiring diagrams quickly and without a steep learning curve. Also, it is build around the flexible open source framework that may be used to draw pretty much anything.

Features
  • platform independence, will run on any machine having Java JRE/JDK 1.6.0_45 or newer
  • easy to use interface, most of the operations can be done using mouse
  • draws schematics, board layouts and chassis layouts
  • high flexibility, has the API to allow plug-ins and new components to be added without much trouble
  • improved performance and reduced memory consumption compared to the previous versions
  • save default values for each property of a component individually
  • group components together and treat them as one, e.g. move, edit or delete
  • export the output to image, PDF or printer
  • export PCB trace mask suitable for toner transfer
  • create a Bill of Materials as a part of the project or export it to few different file formats
  • zoom in/out feature
  • configurable grid spacing on the project level
  • auto update checks for new versions
  • import files created with older versions of the application
  • create and load project templates

System requirements
  • Java JRE/JDK 1.6.0_45 or newer
  • 256MB free RAM memory
  • 10MB free hard drive space
  • Zip utility to unpack the archive

DIYLC on an eComStation machine with Open JDK


Installing DIYLC
Download diylc-3.57.0.zip. Next version needs Java 8. Create a directory "diylc". Open the zip file with a filemanager. Copy its contents to the new directory "diylc". Delete the files "run.sh" and "diylc.exe", we can't use them.

The used cmd file
Diylc works well with Open JDK in OS/2-eCS. I have created an diylc.cmd file with the following contents; 
@echo off
set BEGINLIBPATH=[drive: java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
set path=[drive: java]\JAVA160ga5\bin
set CLASSPATH=[drive: diylc]\diylc_3570\lib
[drive: diylc]
cd [drive: diylc]\diylc_3570
java -Duser.home=[drive: diylc]\diylc_3570 -splash:splash.png -Xms512m -Xmx768m -Dorg.diylc.scriptRun=true
 -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel -jar diylc.jar
 2>diylc-3.57.0-bugs.txt
The last three lines are actual one line, but I had to break it up in parts for this page. Mind the spaces between "true" and "-Dfile.encoding" and between "diylc.jar" and "2>". I use 2 separate partitions, one for Java and one for Diylc with the files created by this program. The references used in the cmd file;

  • [drive: java] = station with Java
  • [drive: diylc] = station with diylc

should be replaced with real drive letters. Save the file and rename it to diylc.cmd. This file is copied to the diylc directory. Furthermore, different paths?, adjust according to your needs.

Create a new program object. Enter at Path and filename: "[drive: diylc]\diylc_3570\diylc.cmd". In the tabpage Session check the boxes "OS/2 window", "Running as an icon" and "Close Window to end program". In the tabpage General you can enter the name "DIY Layout Creator". There is an OS/2 icon in the distribution below.

Parameters / options explained
  • The statement "-Duser.home=[drive: diylc]\diylc_3570" will ensure that Diylc will save all necessary files in own directory instead of saving them in the home directory.
  • The statement "-splash:splash.png" comes from the run.sh file.
  • The specification "-Xms512m" comes from the run.sh file and the website.
  • The specification "-Xmx768m" comes from me, I don't have more memory available for Java, in the run.sh file the value is specified as "-Xmx2048m".
  • The statement "Dorg.diylc.scriptRun = true" ensures that a notice is suppressed due to incorrect startup of Diylc. The designated startup method does not work in OS/2-eCS so every time at startup a no sense slamming notice had to be clicked away.
  • The statement "-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8" ensures that the correct coding is used, comes from the run.sh file.
  • The specification "-Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel" sets the way of the look and feel at startup.
  • The statement "2>diylc-3.57.0-bugs.txt" will ensure that all bugs are saved in the file "diylc-3.57.0-bugs.txt". The 2 in "2>" is not a typo!

Download
In the file you can find the above command file (all drive letters are set to C :) and OS/2 diylc icon: Diylc-eCS.zip.

revision May 31, 2020