Re: gEDA-user: footprints

[DJ Delorie <dj@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I went to PCB and looked at the libraries then found what i wanted
> example resistor 0.25W i then went to Gschem went down Symbol add
> attribute then said footprint = resistor 0.25W

Ok, this part *is* confusing, mostly because you're using the old m4
libraries which weren't designed for gschem use (the new "newlib"
libraries are, but we haven't converted over completely).

What you see in the PCB library dialog is, on the left, the library
category, and on the right, the *description* of the footprint.  Not
the actual footprint name.  Easy to get wrong.

For the old m4 libraries (these are the ones that have the ~ on the
category name) you need to figure out what the footprint name is from
the description.  Sadly, the only way to do that at the moment is to
search the pcblib.contents file (er,
/usr/local/share/pcb/pcblib.contents by default, I think)

Something like this:

  $  grep -i 'resistor 0.25W' pcblib.contents 
  r_025:R025:resistor 0.25W:Description_r_025

The second field, "R025" in this case, is what you want for footprint=
attribute.  At least, that's what my old schematics use.  Might try
the first field if the second doesn't work.


If you use the newlib libraries (the ones without ~), the name in the
right column is the footprint to use.  See why we're switching? ;-)