Re: gEDA-user: Database on symbols, footprints and other (was "Re: gattrib")

[Geoff Swan <shinobi.jack@xxxxxxxxx>]

   Perhaps that's where the pain is, but customizing symbols takes little
   time, so endure the brief pain and get on with it. You can't avoid it.
   Even if you have a heavy symbol from somebody else's library, you have
   to check it carefully, and that's almost as much work as customizing.
   My heavy symbols won't fit your needs, and vice-versa.
   This problem exists even in the big $$ commercial EDA tools. Symbol
   libraries simply don't work the way you wish they would. Too many
   possibilities...


   One company I worked for had a separate symbol for every single part.
   It was a 1-1 between schematic symbol and physical device. This meant
   that you could have multiple 10k resistors, even multiple 10k 0.1W 0805
   resistors if the part was sourced from a few different manufacturers
   and ended up recorded as such in our CML. The actual process of
   creating such parts was not too arduous as it was usually a case of
   copy a similar part and change the necessary attributes. This was using
   Altium as the end to end EDA. It is interesting to note that despite an
   expensive, highly integrated schematic capture, parts library and pcb
   layout software that the same issues of component/symbol replication
   and redundancy exist. Although despite the proliferation of symbols in
   this case it did actually work ok.

   There isn't a magic bullet that will fix these issues. By having as
   much as possible light symbols that are easily modified, a public
   repository of customised heavier symbols this provides people with
   options. Perhaps in the hobby market having a set of predifined heavy
   symbols would be attractive however this really only suits those people
   who for whatever reason are not inclined to thoroughly check the symbol
   against their component and intended application. In these cases an
   0805 resistor has no variants. This however is not the case for a
   design that goes through many iterations or has a particularly
   stringent set of design rules.
   Symbols need to be customised. Often on a project by project basis. All
   that can be done is to make this process easier where possible.

   regards,
   Geoff


_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user