Re: gEDA-user: gattrib

[Mike Bushroe <mbushroe@xxxxxxxxx>]

   I guess part of my problem with gschem, pcb, and gsch2pcb is that I
   never understood what gattrib was for. I though it was an internal
   function used by gschem and gsch2pcb to get the values of symbols
   attributes out of the schematic file. I never realized it was intended
   for humans to use. And I  DEFINITELY did not understand that it entered
   new values into the tables. Perhaps if it were called editattrib or
   setattrib it would be more obvious to newcommers to use it after
   creating light symbols in gcshem to add pcb footprints and other 'heavy
   symbol' attributes that are more easily handled in text. Also, this
   might be more clearly explained in the tutorials.
      But I still think that some tool, between gschem and pcb so that
   neither needs to change and John Doty can be happy, that matches up the
   graphics PCB footprints with the symbol, maybe a text compare of pin
   names or functions to see if pin 1 of the symbol matches pin A of the
   footprint. I also like the idea of a database of component part
   numbers, critical specs like capacitance, resistance, wattage, peak
   reverse voltage, and also had a footprint for that part. I just cower
   at the sheer scale of building such a database from many different
   distributors supplying parts from so many different vendors, each using
   different styles for their spec sheets, only most of which are online
   and in PDF form. If we can build such a database, that would help
   tremendously. But creating it and maintaining it, even with just static
   data like that listed above, would be a tremendous amount of work.
   Mike

     Not because of the bugs I ran into but since choosing a footprint is
     a difficult process in it self I was longing for a footprint
     browser.
     The easiest place to start a clean implementation may be gattrib,
     that I found conventient to duplicate footprint choices, once one
     has been assigned gschem.
     However, the best overview of what is what and therefore choose the
     right footprint is probably gschem. With gschem open, gattrib should
     work however, if one remembers, that gschem is in "read only" then.
     The problem could be split out of gschem, if it were better
     supported,
     to assign a physical part to the symbol. This will probably help
     other
     tools too, since e.g. a Spice model is tied to a part, not to a
     bunch
     of lines with pins (symbol).
     I first thought "device" were the thing to use, but in the standard
     library it's occupied by names like CAPACITOR_POLARIZED which says
     noting about rated voltage or ESR. Any ideas?
     Just my 2 cents


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