Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Connecting Nets by hand

[9000 VAX <vax9000@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/24/05, Samuel A. Falvo II <sam.falvo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Turning off auto-DRC-checking is the only way that I was able to
> successfully connect pins by hand, at all.  The inability to edit
> traces after their drawn, however, is maddening.  And moving parts
> once they've touched a trace is infuriating -- no matter what I do, it
> drags all the trace endpoints with it!  I end up having to delete and
> re-draw all the traces to it.  This sucks when you accidentally place
> a chip one pin off, for example.

Click mouse left button when mouse arrow is on the part to high light
it (It will turn into light blue ). Now drag it with your mouse, the
part will not drag traces connected to its pins.

> 
> Quite the contrary.  I feel very imprisoned and not in control at all.
>  I've more than once thought of making my own PCB editing tool, based
> on a tile-structure, that allows me to basically "paint" a board, as
> DeluxePaint allowed me to paint a picture on my old Amiga.

I feel quite comfortable with this software after several weeks use.
The big problem is documentation though. Sometimes you need to ask
here for answers that you can not find in the documents.

> 
> I do not believe that powerful tools need be hard to learn.  When I
> first got into Linux, the command-line tools were natural extensions
> of what I'd already known about DOS.  Learning about regular
> expressions wasn't even as difficult as working with PCB right now.

I used tango (DOS) years and it also required some time to adapt to
its style. Later on I draw some tango schematic but I could not print
them (printer not supported, can not print to .ps file). I turned to
gEDA and PCB and now I feel safe. A big plus is that I can edit the
plain text files. For example, after my board is done, I need to
change all pad holes from 29 mil to 35 mil. This is very easy with a
text editer.

> 
> PCB and I will just never see eye to eye, and that's the way it is, I guess.
> 
> And since I'm going into all-new territory with the actual production
> of a printed circuit board, I'm sure *that* will just be just dandy
> having to learn about Gerber files, Excellon drill files, etc.
> 
> --
> Samuel A. Falvo II
>