Re: gEDA-user: Removing default title box

[Dan McMahill <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

al davis wrote:
> On Monday 12 May 2008, Stuart Brorson wrote:
>>>> This may sound strange but how do you remove the default
>>>> title box in schematic? Adding a new one just overlaps the
>>>> default one.
>>> I'm curious ...  Should the title box be there by default?
>> I'm one of the folks who pushed for the idea that we should
>> have a title box by default.  The reason:
>>
>> *  Previously, gschem started with the viewing field zoomed
>> waaaaaay out.  Many people couldn't figure out what was going
>> on when they placed parts and saw only tiny specs on the
>> viewing field.
> 
> "zoomed waaaaaay out" was the problem.  That's easy to fix.
> 
>> *  To give newbies a warm & fuzzy feel about where they are
>> working, the decision was taken to put a title block up at
>> the start of gschem.  That way, folks know approximately how
>> much drawing area they have.  It also makes the working area
>> look more official, and provides reassurance that the program
>> is working correctly.
>>
>>> I would rather start with a blank.  If I want a title box,
>>> I will put one there.
>> You're a power user.  Power users generally know about
>> system-gschemrc, right?  Or is that an invalid assumption?
> 
> I was thinking of non-power users .. such as students using it 
> as a front end to simulation.  I suppose there, having a title 
> box could make for better looking lab reports, which is much 
> needed.

A title block has the nice effect sometimes of avoiding a schematic 
which can only be read on 8.5 feet x 11 feet sheets of paper ;)

Of course I've seen a title block contribute to schematics where 
everything is so crammed in that you also can't read a darn thing too.


> Lots of students today have very low computer skills.  It is 
> entirely the fault of the professors, who don't require 
> computer skills.  Editing a config file is far beyond the 
> vision of many students.  If it isn't on a menu, it doesn't 
> exist.  Some of them who can't get to the config file consider 
> themselves to be power users.

hmm...  maybe as part of a homework assignment you should throw in 
things like giving them a model file or some such thing where its wrong 
in a way that awk can easily fix.  You can even tell them "oh, btw this 
file wasn't quite compatible.  You'll have to fix it first before you 
can do your actual problem."  That would not be too different from a 
real life situation...


> Maybe we are doing something right by letting them edit the 
> config file, and even edit the schematic with a text editor.
> 
> Maybe again we are doing something right by giving them the need 
> to configure something.  Too many just use the default 
> configuration without realizing how easy it is to customize the 
> environment if you can edit a text file.

you could also ask questions about things that show up in a big netlist 
or a big simulation output that are hard to answer without 
awk/perl/ruby/whatever but easy with those tools.

I'm not quite sure of the right places to work that stuff in because I'm 
not a fan of teaching applications.  But I am a fan of making sure 
they've had a reason to use a variety of the normal unix tools.

-Dan


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