5 Bioinformatics/BioCAD preliminaries It may be beneficial to consider performing a variety of bioinformatics and BioCAD tasks before using DeviceEditor. As noted in the Introduction to Biological Computer-Aided Design, there are many different types of BioCAD tools. DeviceEditor is primarily a visual design canvas that facilitates the selection and (combinatorial) arrangement of the composite parts to be constructed together. Given this limited-scope of functionality, there are often several upstream tasks, as well as downstream (implementation) design requirements, that are important to consider before using DeviceEditor. Upstream BioCAD tasks: As depicted in the process flow for DeviceEditor, DeviceEditor sits immediately downstream of identifying (in thought) the parts you would like to include in your design. As discussed in the Introduction to Biological Computer-Aided Design section, there are a variety of upstream BioCAD tools (such as GLAMM (Bates 2011), ClothoCAD (Xia 2011),  Tinkercell, SynBioSS and SBW) that may be able assist you as you go about the component selection process. Downstream (implementation) design requirements: As depicted in the process flow for DeviceEditor, DeviceEditor sits immediately upstream of implementing the DNA design into an assembled plasmid or linear fragment. As discussed in the "Bioinformatics/BioCAD prerequisites to SLIC/Gibson/CPEC and Golden-gate DNA assembly" section of the j5 user's manual, there are several aspects of a DNA design that can adversely affect the downstream implementation of the design. Reviewing the particular situations that can be problematic for DNA construction, and using the appropriate bioinformatics and/or BioCAD tools to identify them in your putative design (and develop work-arounds as required), before pursuing DNA design with DeviceEditor, can pro-actively guard against future frustration and wasted effort (for who ever is doing the actual construction).