gEDA-user: Multiple open pages in gschem

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm hoping to conduct a brief census of people who use multiple pages in
gschem. I'm working on some code-changes to libgeda which may change the
navigation model slightly, and wanted to see how it is used now.

This is a feature which confuses some new users, as it can make work
"disappear" behind a new page.

I'm also unsure if the "user-model" (what the user thinks the program
does), matches the program's behaviour:

Do you use multiple windows running from the same copy of gschem?

Do you use multiple running copies of gschem?

Do you use these for related schematics?
  (Do you tend to have multiple pages from the same design?)

How much use do you make of hierarchy traversal?
  (Schematic or symbol down, up, page next, page previous)?


For testing, I've got a version of gschem which just opens a pages in a
flat list. These can be traversed using toolbar buttons, just like a
document viewer. This significantly simplifies some code, and UI
presentation issues for a complex nested  hierarchy.

I'm also considering it might be best to launch a new window for each
hierarchy level, reserving multiple pages in one window to tie directly
to the case where a single level of hierarchy has multiple pages.

This is probably something I'll do whilst I develop the extended
data-structure needed to be more flexible with viewing the hierarchy.

Example screenshots are at:

http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~pcjc2/geda/gschem_page_navi.png
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~pcjc2/geda/gschem_page_navi2.png

(Same pic, just a different page loaded in each case).

Regards.

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)



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