Re: gEDA-user: pcb grid improvements... status of patch?

[Andrew Poelstra <asp11@xxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 02:09:13AM +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote:
> There is already some information in user preference that should 
> really be configurabel on a per project base. Skipping through the
> file:
> 
> grid-units-mm = 1

This will turn into
  grid-units = mm

I was quite frustrated to find that the .pcb file format has no
way to store this (though it does store the grid visibility).
Right now we check the grid spacing and try to guess which of
mm/mil the user was using.

Likely I will use an (Attribute "grid-unit" "mm") for this in
future.

> text-scale = 522
> bloat = 984
> shrink = 984
> grid-increment-mil = 5.000000
> grid-increment-mm = 0.100000
> size-increment-mil = 10.000000
> size-increment-mm = 0.200000
> line-increment-mil = 8.000000
> line-increment-mm = 0.100000
> clear-increment-mil = 2.000000
> clear-increment-mm = 0.500000

These too will be changed as we move away from a strict mm/mil
configuration.

I'm not sure what to do about them. Right now I have a giant
table of default/max/min for all these units, which totals 12
values per unit. Times ten currently-supported units, this is
120 values!

Storing defaults for all of them would require 40 lines...
including things like cm, km, cmil, that most users would
never use. Then what happens when we add support for new
units? For user-defined units?

Plus, preferences dialog for them is a facade. See bug 699464.

> color-file = /home/kmk/.pcb/colors/layout_4layer
> library-newlib = ~/geda/footprints:./footprints:.
> 
> There are some variables, that clearly are no preference at
> all, but change constantly when routing:
> 
> via-thickness = 7086
> via-drilling-hole = 4330
> line-thickness = 9842
> 
> 
> Other preferences are just defaults to be used for new layouts:
> min-width = 591
> min-silk = 591
> min-drill = 1575
> min-ring = 590
> groups = 1,2,3,c:4,5,6,s:7:8
> route-styles = (...snip...)
> 
> In addition, sometimes PCB uses the values in .pcb/settings as 
> a default. I found no obvious general rule when it uses which.
> This preferences/settings business feels messy and somewhat 
> random. I'd welcome a move toward a clear distinction between 
> "user preference" and "project settings" and between "settings" 
> and their "defaults". 
>

The difference between settings and defaults could be as simple
as putting a preferences file in /etc/pcb. Things like min-width,
etc, would go in there, and by default the user's .pcb/preferences
would only contain menu-configurable things.

-- 
Andrew Poelstra
Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net
Web:   http://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew/



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