Re: gEDA-user: What is the standard of gEDA tools and PCB

["Charles Lepple" <clepple@ghz.cc>]

Mario Klebsch said:
> Hi!
>
> Am Montag, 19.05.03 um 00:49 Uhr schrieb DJ Delorie:
>> But a more conventional way of doing what you say is to select the
>> "edit properties" tool, and when the properties window comes up,
>> specify "change width to 40 mils" and just click on all the traces you
>> want changed.  Click, click, click, click, four traces done.
>
> This is a conventional, pre-GUI-aproach. With modern GUIs, you first
> select the objects to modify and then perform operations on your
> selection. So you would first select one or more traces (Click,
> Ctrl-click, Ctrl-click, Ctrl-click) and then select change width->40.
>
> I do know nothing about pcb, but this is one of the fundamental changes
> introduced with the window based GUI.

"modern" doesn't always mean "better".

If you grew up using a system that copied its user interface from the Mac,
then yes, you almost always select the objects first, and then specify the
command (noun-verb order). If, on the other hand, you were influenced by
AutoCAD (among others, I'm sure), you may have become accustomed to the
ability to mix noun-verb and verb-noun (command, then objects) forms.

One advantage to the verb-noun order is that your selection process can
filter out objects that don't make sense to the command. This can be
helpful if you have a lot of objects in close proximity, and don't want to
zoom in too far. I'm sure that the HCI world has studies arguing both for
and against verb-noun, though.

Since this discussion has become something of a forum for discussing
everyone's ideal (yet far off in the distant future) PCB interface, here's
my two cents: split commands into their noun and verb components. If you
have a selection, then the command (either typed on a command line, or
invoked through a menu or button) verb component operates on the
selection, with the default parameters being based on the selection. If
there is no selection, then the noun component is called to filter the
selection (after the verb component asks for the parameters).

-- 
Charles Lepple <clepple@ghz.cc>
http://www.ghz.cc/charles/