Hey - we are  still here! Whew.

I was out for the holiday weekend, chewing off my fingernails worried about the new website but determined to have a little break - and TADA! I came back in this morning and to my great relief it was pretty much ok. People have been making uploads and orders and so on and things are mostly working smoothly.

There have been a couple of minor bugs:

1. The sizing code was slightly off for a few uploads - thanks go out to those that reported. I fixed this bug this morning (we hope) - if there are any more problems let us know!
2. Images for "Historical Designs" are not accurate .. right. I have not gotten the import of the old design images happening yet. "Historical Designs" are designs which you have ordered in the past; I tried to import these so that it would be easier to order them again. It is possible that if somebody sent you a link to thier design it shows up as yours - sorry about that, but there isn't much I can do about it as there was no way to associate a design upload with an account before except by purchase.
3. Some other smaller fine points in design/functionality - I have added these to my todo list and will work through them.
4. General image instability - I am currently working on a bug that removes  the images that you would see after uploading in the PcbDesigns section of the Account pages. So, if you don't see the right image but only the default generic image don't worry; the model will be correct and the image should return soon ..

Thanks for all your feedback - you guys rock!

At long last we have made it to the release - and with a little luck this will make everybody a little happier with BatchPCB. This new site includes many improvements underneath the shiny new design (Thanks and cheers for the design go entirely to the SparkFun graphics team), a new look and some new features. The entire site code was rewritten from scratch and runs on a new Open Source CMS (called "QuasiCMS" ..) that was written for this project. There are bound to be a few bugs yet - we encourage you to report them, that will be a big help towards making this site work well for all so don't be shy! Email support@batchpcb.com with reports, suggestions, kudos, comments - any sort of feedback is welcome.

On to the new stuff! Here is a short list of the big new features:

• New Upload Process

  The design upload process has been completely reworked - again with a little AJAX when possible. And it now shows images of the files that can be rendered to make the selection easier. The code will also still attempt to auto select by file extension, but the images will help when it fails. It should also weed out any files that are not Gerbers or are too messed up for us to deal with (ie. if we can't make an image, we probably can't load it in the panelizer either ..).

  The size estimate code has been replaced (again) as well - the new code is much more accurate and should deal better with a greater variety of output.

  And, all of the designs will go into the new "PCB Design Manager" in your account - we especially want feedback on the upload and design management tools; as the users you will know what would make these more useful, smooth, cool .. and so on.

• PCB Design Management

  Now the designs that you upload will appear in a section of your account ("Pcb Designs" in the "My Account" menu). In fact, I have even tried to import the ones that were uploaded and were ordered in the past.

  From the PCB Designs page you can add any design to your shopping cart, change the name or model name, delete it forever, or share it with the public (coming soon ..). You can also check on the status - when the bot finishes the DRC check it will update the status of the design - as soon as it is "Passed" you can add it to the cart at any time.

• New Check Out System

  A totally new check out with a nice framework underneath the hood - if your browser supports it AJAX will be used to make things a little snappier. And the selection of shipping methods offered should be improved and will improve more as we continue to fine tune the shipping modules.

  We are also now offering a shipping option of "Local Pickup" for local people that can just come on over and get there there boards directly from us. And there is also a "Pay by Mail" option for those that would rather send a money order or a certified check by mail.

• New Account Management Options

  There are some new things that you can do with your account - including change your password/ username and email address - handy if your email address changes like mine does, I like to try and stay a jump ahead of the spam if I can ..

  Coming soon we hope to add tracking your packages in your account too - for now the order page shows a little more information than before.

• New Order Processing and Back Office stuff ..

  Well, you won't see this code - but we have reworked the back office infrastructure to keep better track of things and ultimately to be more efficient. The goal is that this speeds up order turn around and eliminates most (if not all ..) bloopers on our part. Eh, we may still mess up - but the new infrastructure makes it much harder for us to do that. Order status should be more reliably updated, email notifications, tracking, etc. - we have laid down some logic in the database and the administrative interface (all new code) that should produce a general improvement.

  In general there is now a clean maintainable code base with some thought put into design and plans for the future - we basically tore down the old shed, put in a foundation and started over. But now the new structure is there and going forward we are in a good position to add features, improvements - even fixing bugs should be easier now.

• More To Come

  As I mentioned above - now we have something to build on. We need a little time for the new site to get stable, fix little bugs and glitches .. we have done everything we can to test and catch things before release to minimize inconvenience (Many thanks to the Beta testers!!), but I am sure we have still missed things. Again, your reports are welcome - any problems will be looked at immediately; that's my first priority for a little while.

  After that .. heh, heh, we have "plans" .. you'll have to wait and see ;-).

Yay! The new and improved BatchPCB is almost ready! BETA testing is happening now - visit:
   devel.batchpcb.com
   to try the new site out. For the BETA test you can do everything you would do, including uploading a design and making an order (if you use the Credit Card payment just leave the test CC number in there and select 2009/12 as the expiration date.)

The new site has many new features (and more to come later ..), try things out, look around and have fun with it. You should be able to log in with the same login you normally use. In the account management pages you will see order histories, addresses, etc. - Plus a big new feature: PCB design managment! Now you can save designs and add them to your shopping cart easily any time you like.

Another new thing is the upload process - it has changed a bit ... I will leave it as a surprise ;-), just login, upload a design and try it!

The checkout procedure is totally new and we have added options for local pickup and paying with a check or money order.

We want your feedback/ideas! Our position is that this is your website - after all, you are the people that use it, right? Please, send us your thoughts, ideas, praise, critiques, bug reports - email support@batchpcb.com. If you have ideas for improvements and/or new features I will definitely consider them and try to implement any that are reasonable.

Til next time - Enjoy!