As a user of IVEX, i have to throw in my opinion:

|My two cents worth - My vote is for WINBOARD & WINDRAFT from Ivex.
|Last time I looked, seemed a tad cheaper than Eagle.

first,there's a new version out, but i didn't feel like paying the
upgrade fee (bug fixes, as in minor revisions, are free.
major revisions, as in going from V2 to V3 cost to
upgrade). So my comments reflect 2.05.

|Does everything  I
|want at a reasonable price, the interface is OK, more or less intuitive,
|it's easy to add parts to your PCB or schematic library.

Well, yes and no. It is easy to add parts to the schematic. It is
sometimes *very hard* to add parts to the PCB portion. And that
is mainly because sometimes, the editor just refuses to let me
number the pins correctly. I can usually get it to work by manually
editing the definition, but not this part. (i have one TO220 part that
refuses to have a 'pin 1', i have to add it to the netlist manually).

|Main bug is that
|it crashes a fair bit - is that just my PC? -

No, it is the program :)

the schematic entry seems fairly stable (im using 2.05). The
PCB portion does crash. Especially the DRC. That's because
it is easy to screw it up (bad programming). One no-no is placing
two vias on top of each other. I know you don't normally do this
intentionally, but it is easy to do when moving a trace segment
from one layer to another.

It is quite possible for your PCB file to get corrupted to the
point where it is unusable.

|so you need to d\save your
|work frequently. But considering its price, it's still good value for $$
|IMHO.


i am not really happy with it, but as far as good points, i have
to agree with Peter. tech support is good (the corrupted files i
mentioned above were fixed). very capable, and very easy to use.
There's a little tutorial for the PCB package that ought to get you
up and running quickly. It has a low learning curve (though that is a
subjective measure). And cheap. The demo is limited to 100 pins,
going to 200 costs some $30. More pins == more $$$. I think i
paid around $500 for unlimited pins for the schematic entry, and $500
for the unlimited PCB.

After all I keep hearing on this list, I am not sure that any other package
is necessarily better. I keep hearing about Eagle, which sounds good,
so I may have to give that one a try.