I originally made these suggestions at the beginning of the PicoScope 7 Early Access. I downloaded the stable version today and here are my suggestions. Most of these suggestions have not changed from the start of the early access program.
It is really disappointing that PicoScope makes such amazing hardware but there software lags way behind in quality and features.
In my opinion as a software engineer with over 40 years experience and over 15 years writing user interfaces. The user interface in Version 7 looks very pretty to the non-scope user but is difficult and slow for someone who has been using oscilloscopes (digital, analog and usb) for decades. Picoscope 6, even with all of its problems, was a better interface for an oscilloscope than Picoscope 7 is.
1. On installation offer the ability to import scope setting from existing installations of PicoScope 6 or 7.
2. Default the probes to 10X rather than 1X. The majority of probes are normally used at 10X rather than 1X.
3. Analog trace names are not available. This has been requested by many users for at least 6 years. Most scopes have this capability and it is a glaring omission from Picoscope.
4. Add the possibility to move the top bar (with running, timebase, etc.) to the bottom by setup or dragging.
5. Add the ability to move the side bar to the left or right by dragging.
6. Add the ability to add icons from the more menu to the side panel or top panel
7. Keyboard shortcuts are not supported.
8. Notes on the side bar just flashes the screen but doesn't do anything else
9. Add the ability to move all icons and controls on the side and top panel to the other panel or change the order on the existing panel. This ties also to #6. This would allow all of the icons to be on a single panel allowing more space on the screen for traces.
10. Add context sensitive right click menus. For example right click on a trace and selections for label, range, filtering, home trace to 0.0V, etc could come up. Right click on the main screen and selections such as set trigger point here or freeze display.
11. Add buttons for trace enable, disable, trigger auto, none, repeat and single, etc. That way multiple clicks are not needed (one click to bring up the menu and a second click in the pop up menu).
All of the above, really. I want to add this to the suggestions:
- add the possibility to change the timebase in the main window by using the scrollwheel in the linux version of PS7. It is possible in the windows version, I have no idea why it missing under linux.
I am supporting the requests posted above. Also would like to suggest an implementation of the following:
- possibility of measurement of external trigger frequency;
- suggesting the same filename when choosing a saving file data as .txt or .csv file. Suppose user opens the "example.psdata" PS file. When user wants to save data as .txt or .csv file, PS software should suggest an "example.txt" or "example.csv" file name rather than a "timestamp.txt" or "timestamp.csv" file name.
- a calculation of the phase-frequency spectra in FFT implementation, not just an amplitude-frequency spectra. (I understand that it would involve a serious design and programming effort, but it would ease user's life. I solve this problem by saving data into .txt file, load such data to Excel and process data in Excel - such a tedious work. It would be nicer to have the phase data in real time ....)
I'm a test engineer and I use the software multiple times per day for various measurements.I saved presets for every measurement I perform. When I load the preset, I have to press the upper left button to get into running mode. A checkbox when saving the preset ('start in running mode') or the ability to have the software always in running mode would save me a lot of wasted brain occupation and time.
This feature would make a big difference in the ease of use for me.