Re: gEDA-user: PCB & Gschem

[Karel Kulhavy <clock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 04:44:59PM -0500, Dan McMahill wrote:
> Marc Price wrote:
> >I Guess i got to say footprint= but still havent worked out what for 
> >diodes resistors capacitors
> >also wouldnt it make sense for Gschem to have a drop down list of 
> >footprints and you just select the one you want .
> >
> 
> so which footprint library do you want to use?  Only the ones 
> distributed with PCB?  Only the ones in Johns library?  Perhaps only IPC 
> compliant names even if we dont' have PCB footprints?  There are people 
> using gschem for board design who are not using PCB as the layout tool 
> so I'd imagine their valid choices will be different and there are many 
> using PCB who maintain their own footprint library.
> 
> To top that off, what do you do about parts like say a 10H116 which 
> comes in a PLCC20 or a DIP-16.  The pin out is different for the 2 packages.

Proposed solution: add comments to footprints and symbols which will
make these issues clear. Example: 10H116-1.sym. Comment: "This is the
symbol which belongs to PLCC20 version of the part. DIP-16 is covered by
10H116-2.sym."

> 
> Don't get me wrong, this is a frustration for many people and I'd love 

But not for all people - not for Eagle, Orcad, Protel etc. users because
these companies know how to implement usability.

> to see a clean and simple solution, but there are some real issues to be 
> addressed before any sort of useful solution can be put in place.
> 
> I think the best approach for the near term though is just to have a big 
> list of all the available footprints from which ever library you care to 
> use on hand at schematic creation time.

And put the list easily accessible from the footprint attribute
assignment menu.

CL,
> 
> -Dan