Re: gEDA-user: gEDA Wikibook ? (was: Toporouter crashing in GIThead on seemingly simple circuits)

[kai-martin knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bert Timmerman wrote:

> I don't think it's a Good Thing (TM) that a User Manual is
> derived from source code files, for this would require a
> person with gEDA-dev priviliges to push changes into the
> git repository.

Fair enough. 

Anyway, the current situation is like this:

pcb: 
The distribution contains a manual which relies heavily
on source code supplied content (actions). It is written in 
texinfo format. The manual is mainly organized as a reference 
to the functions of pcb. There is a fairly comprehensive manual
on footprint generation written by Stephen Meier and Stuart Brorson.
DJ Delorie recently wrote a turorial on how to get started with pcb.

gschem: 
A user guide in the dokuwiki at gpleda. This guide
goes through the parts of the GUI and describes what they do.
Except for some more recent features, this it seems fairly up
to date. There is no much info on guile. Interaction with pcb
and simulation tools is mentioned but not elaborated. xgsch2pcb
is not mentioned at all. There much less HOWTO information than
I would expect from a complete user manual. 

gnetlist: 
There is a user guide in the wiki. Some information
is out of date. For example, according to the guide all symbols
must contain a device attribute. Some important aspects like 
hierarchy support and specific backend info are not covered
at all. There is some backend information scattered among 
READMEs, though.

gnucap and ngspice: 
Their distribution comes with comprehensive manuals in PDF
format -- literally hundreds of pages. I can't say much about the
content because I still have not used these simulators for real
projects. Both manuals are not specific to gschem. There is a
HOWTO in the wiki written by Stuart Brorson which covers the use
of ngspice with gschem.

Icarus Verilog:
I can't comment on this since I have never been close to 
design FPGAs and the like.

other geda tools (gerbv, gattrib, wcalc, mcalc, GTKWave):
No manuals, just man pages and READMEs.

What is missing in this picture? 
IMHO, it is a manual on how to use the tools in concert. The 
best approximation so far is the tutorial by Bill Wilson. But
as it is a beginners tutorial, it does not attempt to cover
more advanced tips and tricks. I envision this as the topic 
a wikibook: A user manual to the complete suite of tools.

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
Ãffentlicher PGP-SchlÃssel:
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6C0B9F53



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