Re: gEDA-user: gEDA gets some great press!

[Richard Prescott <richard@xxxxxxxxx>]

Talking about "clean, optimized UI" :

In gschem:

- how can I create a "palette" of basic components such as nmos, nmos3,
pmos, pmos3, polyresistor and so on (especially useful for
micro-electronic) ?

- Edition of properties is also very important in micro-electronic.  Can
someone point me how to create a panel (docking window or something)
with properties of selected component ? 

Thanks

Richard


To add to the wishlist in matter of "clean, optimized UI":
- automatically put the name of the net next to the pin of the component
placed
- clean the "?" mess, give the opportunity to have read-only, derived,
calculated or default propterties (think of Cadence iPar(), cdsTerm(),
cdsName(), minimal L,W for transistors... and yes the actual autonumber)
- proposed a nice formatted presentation of properties next the the
component such as (W*M/L):
12u x 4
-------
   4u
- proposed some fonts ([serif,sans-serif,monspace],[italic,bold])
- a complex find and replace
- external images such as eps graphics.
- symbols with origin on the most useful pin (so negative points are
valid)
- when leaving the mouse over something, gives some info such as net
name
- separate pins from their figure representation. (driving to EDIF
someday)
- and many many other....


On Tue, 2004-12-14 at 16:22, Dale Grover wrote:
> Realistically, this is probably as good an article as it gets.  It's 
> very good to see these tools get good press.
> 
> I can't let the following go by, though:
> 'The gEDA software is "an interesting project" but is not 
> "professional caliber," said Ian Suttie, vice president of sales and 
> marketing at Electronics Workbench. "While gEDA has lots of primitive 
> functionality, it does not provide a clean, optimized user interface 
> of the sort professional engineers demand. Neither does gEDA software 
> provide some of the functionality essential for professional use."'
> 
> I bought the schematic entry/pcb/autorouter package a few years from 
> Electronics Workbench.  It crashed frequently for me, had problems 
> with new part design, and in general frustrated me so much that I 
> gave up using it.  I would specifically not associate the words 
> "professional caliber" with that software.  Granted, this is a sales 
> and marketing person, and perhaps the software has been improved 
> tremendously and is now "professional caliber," but it did give me a 
> laugh reading this.
> 
> It is a pleasure using open-source tools such as PCB, and my thanks 
> go out to the folks who have put so much time and effort into the 
> tools.
> 
> --Dale Grover
> (So far, two 4-layer boards successfully fabricated by PCBExpress 
> using PCB software under Mac OS X)
> 
> 
> At 10:54 AM -0800 12/14/04, John Eaton wrote:
> >Ales Hvezda wrote:
> >
> >>Hi All,
> >>
> >>Thought I'd pass this along:
> >>
> >>http://www.eedesign.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=55301354
> >>
> >>Many thanks to all who contribute and use gEDA.
> >>
> >>-Ales
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >Good article.
> >
> >It always irk's me when someone says that Open Source isn't
> >"professional caliber" or lacks user support. CAD software is
> >complex and everyone has bug's and anomilies. gEDA is no
> >worse than some of the stuff I had to pay for. Commercial
> >vendors are always trying to cram in more  new features
> >and want to  lock  in their users .  Open source is much more
> >aligned with the end user's best interest and doesn't play those
> >games.
> >
> >I have had supported comercial software where you call them and
> >say "your tool doesn't work when I do  this" and they respond
> >" don't do that".
> >
> >John Eaton
>