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

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> 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.  

This is a good point.  Commercial layout programs allow you to
double-click onto a trace and then edit its various properties.  How
difficult would it be to make PCB do the same thing, or at least allow
PCB to change the line width of the trace? 

> 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.

This is an interesting point.  I also am annoyed when I drag a
component & it drags the end point of all attached tracks with it.  Is
there any reason why this feature is needed or useful?  I can't think
of any.  Other layout programs allow you to move only the component,
and leave the tracks behind.

OTOH, I have learned to turn off all layers associated with the
component and delete all attached tracks before moving the component.
A work around, yes, but it does the job.

> PCB and I will just never see eye to eye, and that's the way it is,
> I guess.

I didn't like PCB either, and avoided it for almost a year.  My first
gEDA design was done using a gschem -> gnetlist -> Protel layout
flow.  But I stuck with it & eventually learned to use PCB.  

I'll also say that my experience using Protel for layout was also
frustrating.  Protel 99SE -- the version I used -- was really buggy.
I learned to "save early and often" as a defensive strategy against
that program.  The fact that I was running it on Win98 didn't help
matters, I suppose. . . .

Stuart