> Browser Not Supported
>
> PCB Tracer requires a browser that supports access to a local directory.
> This is needed to save and load your PCB Tracer project files.
>
> Please use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge for the best experience.
On Firefox, after bypassing the ominous warnings, when I tried to create a new project and choose a directory to save the project files, I get
> Directory picker is not supported in this browser. Please use a modern browser like Chrome or Edge.
While I appreciate the early warning, so that the user doesn't spend too much effort only to later realize that they can't save their files to disk, I don't appreciate the implicit labeling of Firefox as not being a "modern" browser.
If you're developing a web app with APIs only available in certain browsers, just say/admit so.
If all the app need is to upload a photo of PCB, <input type="file"> is more than sufficient. It's been baseline years ago.
For download, it can download from a blob URI. This is not an uncommon practice.
If (not verified since I'm using Firefox) it claims that "Gerber files are composed of many individual files so that those two don't suffice" and the app does involve Gerber processing, it could have been solved by introducing a zip library.
"Gerbers" are indeed several individual files -- there's one for each layer of the PCB, such as front copper, front solder mask, front silkscreen, back copper, back solder mask, etc, etc.
A zip library is precisely how other webapps that load or output Gerbers handle it.
Honestly that's exactly what it would look like if someone posted malware to a show HN. I'm not claiming that's what this is, just that it's _exactly_ what it would look like so you'd have to be braindead to go that route.
In a few years when you're not 12 any more, you'll be embarassed by this. When that happens, don't sweat it, we were all 12 at some point. I'm just lucky that for me that was before the internet.
I needed exactly this sort of tool for a reverse-engineering project! I was so invested I returned here to write this comment... then spotted the other comments about "no Firefox support". Indeed, visually broken "Browser Not Supported" popup appears.
Darn. Disappointing. Guess I will have to keep looking.
Also... it doesn't look open-source and the comments about file access are valid. The functionality listed is completely possible as a browser-based local app with no server functionality.
Other webapps (https://falstad.com/circuit/) seem to be able to open a file picker in Firefox just fine. Saving is just via downloading to the Downloads folder, but the functionality is not impossible.
There are other ways for webpages to get file uploads than this particular JS API. I upload files via firefox every single business day as part of my job.
The overt hostility in this thread really bums me out!
I came to say that this looks amazing and came at the most absurdly perfect time, because I was literally habitually skimming HN before settling in to manually reverse engineer a PCB.
I hope this works well, because it's an extraordinarily useful tool if so.
I don't think I've seen much of what I'd call overt hostility. But there do seem to be a lot of firefox users commenting about not being able to use this. I don't think there'd be as many if the site wasn't saying that Firefox isn't supported because it doesn't support access to the local file system for uploads and downloads. But Firefox does indeed support that, just not via whatever API they're using.
I wonder (outside HN) what percentage of people who need to reverse engineer a PCB are also people who insist on Firefox. Probably smaller than the percentage of those people who want to save results to their local filesystem.
Firefox allows saving and loading files from the local file system. This site just uses some method to do it that's only supported by Chrome/Edge. So it's a unnecessarily user-hostile design choice they made.
If you're developing a web app with APIs only available in certain browsers, just say/admit so.
For download, it can download from a blob URI. This is not an uncommon practice.
If (not verified since I'm using Firefox) it claims that "Gerber files are composed of many individual files so that those two don't suffice" and the app does involve Gerber processing, it could have been solved by introducing a zip library.
A zip library is precisely how other webapps that load or output Gerbers handle it.
Why do you need file access to sell me?
Closed immediately.
btw. I am your target market.
I didn’t realize spite for users was a good reason for me to not bother with Firefox support in my web apps, thank you for enlightening me
Darn. Disappointing. Guess I will have to keep looking.
Also... it doesn't look open-source and the comments about file access are valid. The functionality listed is completely possible as a browser-based local app with no server functionality.
Other webapps (https://falstad.com/circuit/) seem to be able to open a file picker in Firefox just fine. Saving is just via downloading to the Downloads folder, but the functionality is not impossible.
https://caniuse.com/native-filesystem-api
Would be really neat if it could trace automagically too, possibly with sanded PCBs?
I came to say that this looks amazing and came at the most absurdly perfect time, because I was literally habitually skimming HN before settling in to manually reverse engineer a PCB.
I hope this works well, because it's an extraordinarily useful tool if so.