Re: gEDA-user: Snap to grid preventing selecting/dragging text

[Colin D Bennett <colin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:52:01 +0100
Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Colin D Bennett wrote:
> 
> > This brings up a good point.  Very often I have difficulty selecting
> > small components and more significantly text in pcb, due to
> > snap-to-grid being enabled.
> 
> Did you try "Only Names" from the settings menu?

Yes, it helps avoid non-text entities from inadvertently being picked
instead, but doesn't help select text when the snap-to-grid decides that
the nearest grid point isn't on the text anyway.  You might think of
"Only Names" as preventing false positives but not helping prevent false
negatives.

> > I found that I 
> > I usually have to go through the menus
> > then and dial in a much finer grid so I can drag the text or
> > component that I want to grab, 
> 
> Maybe, you already know this. If not, it may enhance your experience: 
> Grabbing in pcb does not need a selection. Just let the mouse hover 
> over the object in question and drag.

Yes, thanks.  I do appreciate that feature of pcb; it's how I as a user
expect it to work.  In contrast, I find that gschem's requirements if
you want to move a symbol to be really tiresome and it really slows
down my schematic editing.

How to move a symbol in gschem:

1. Press and release the mouse button over the symbol you wish to move,
in order to cause it to become selected. (Hopefully it wasn't already
selected or you might have just selected an attribute like the refdes
or value instead!)

2. Wait for about 0.5 second.  This is necessary or gschem thinks it's
a double-click.  Waste of time!  Twiddle thumbs, etc. (It really adds
up quickly when you have a lot of editing to do.)

3. Press the mouse button, hold it, and drag the symbol.

4. If you're trying to be quick, you might not have waited long enough
before proceeding to step 3!  Press Close on the attributes dialog and
GOTO 2.


> > The recent discussion on improved grid handling would also improve
> > this.  For me, I would like keyboard shortcuts that quickly allow
> > more useful grid size changes. 
> 
> My wish in this context would be, to bind increase/decrease by 
> predefined values to the same keys as in gschem: "[" and "]"  

Excellent idea.

> > I would use only 100 mil, 50 mil, 25 mil, 12.5
> 
> I would prefer: 0.1 mm, 0.2 mm, 0.5 mm, 1 mm, 2 mm, ...
> Same values as for European money, for the same reasons :-)

I've been enthusiastically supporting the SI since 2006
<http://gibibit.com/Join_the_world>.  Don't get me started... :-)
I could rant for hours on end about the ridiculousness of the U.S.
customary system of units.  My Imperial unit example was just an
example of how 5 mil increment is a fairly useless feature; the same
goes for 0.05 mm increment.

Regards,
Colin


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