Maybe it is just you who are unable to use KiCAD.

I have laid out plenty of boards using KiCAD, managing just fine with everything you complain about. Yes it has it quirks, but it is simply one of the best free tools out there in my opinion.

I have managed to lay out boards many times in KiCAD, and yes its one of the best totally free tools, out of a pool of what 2? Its useless to me if its going to pull random garbage out of its hat at any second, my time is more valuable than redoing work multiple times do to quirks and random crashes.

PS: I dont consider loosing half your work in a single click or dumping out of existence cause you rotate a part one too many times "quirks", those are deal breaking bugs.

do you want to have it save as it comes in, or just copy n paste a blob of data?

+ 1

so irritating

I do that all the time, something else must be happening

dont use the serial monitor, use putty or something and add

Code:

  Serial.write(27);     
  Serial.print("[2J");   
  Serial.write(27);
  Serial.print("[H");

in your code

define small as possible

is that 5mm centers or 2.5 mm centers on the headers?

gee you got me sherlock, care to write a 1 page rant about it?

typical ignorant and explosive reaction I come to ignore your posts for.

I don't want to build any extra hardware.  I don't want to buy some wierd programming device.

its 3 resistors and 2 diodes running on a standard arduino, so apparently you didnt look too hard, hack up the usb interface on the uno or buy an Leonardo

vusb

http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html

and here is an instructable that is for making a wii controller into usb, but its handy as it explains USB descriptors and whatnot
http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Wii-Classic-Controller/#step1

that and the cost of a 40 watt resistor could feed your family dinner

if the micro is getting hot, something is shorted

I notice my radio shack has been carrying seed studio products, got an Ethernet shield for 20 bucks, its been a few weeks since I have been so I cant comment if the seed arduino is or would be more expensive, or maybe it was a cheaper seed mega

I will try and remember to swing by there sometime this week, thank you for the excuse to go to radio shack

their packaging is in clear blister packs with black or dark something inserts

just cause you close the serial monitor does not mean your arduino stops sending bytes which is being stored in a buffer somewhere on your computer or USB interface (if using usb to serial)