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Re: gEDA-user: Multiple open pages in gschem
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?
Yes, if you mean different schematic sheets accessed via "<" and ">".
Do you use multiple running copies of gschem?
No.
Do you use these for related schematics?
(Do you tend to have multiple pages from the same design?)
Yes. I belive strongly that you should open one instance of gschem to
edit one design.
How much use do you make of hierarchy traversal?
(Schematic or symbol down, up, page next, page previous)?
Symbol up/down. Page prev/next. But almost never schematic up/dn.
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.
Naw. Sounds confusing to me. Which window corresponds to which
hierarchical level?
If I were to be granted my wish, a better way to traverse hierarchy is
to have a tree widget (i.e. directory/file browser) either on the left
side of the gschem screen (like in -- ugh! -- MS Windows' file system
browser), or maybe in a pop-up window. Then if you click on a
particular sheet, it opens up in the main gschem window.
This pre-supposes that you have created the concept of "design" in
gschem. (That is, right now gschem only has the concept of a schematic
page. Yes, you can link schematic pages together in gschem, but the
different pages can have nothing to do with one another -- they were
just opened during the same gschem session.) The concept of "design"
would form the top-level data structure which would tie together all
the different, associated schematic pages into a logical unit. Then,
the tree widget would reflect the actual structure of the entire
design.
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
I like the left/right arrows and the p. X of Y very much! I'm a
little unclear on the two down arrows, but suppose they are down
symbol and down schematic, right? If so, where's the up button?
Stuart
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