Re: gEDA-user: Solving the light/heavy symbol problem

[John Griessen <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/20/2011 04:09 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
> hmmm... think about how a simplehttp://  changed the way we share
> information across the Internet.  Think of how Facebook changed the
> way people manage their social lives.  Are we prepared to put the
> effort into making something of*that*  scale, for EDA?  It would be
> cool if we got it right, but a pain if we didn't.

Could RSS feeds work for this?  a starter set of feeds would be small and
easy for beginners.  Symbol and footprint names and descriptions
could be supplied via RSS, then following the RSS link when selecting the
symbol or footprint would show you its details before placing it.

Users would add to the RSS feeds they track as they go along
finding source of footprints/symbols.  There would be name conflicts sometimes.
Some users would want a short list of library items, some would want to
create their own subset libraries locally.  It would be nice if the method
of choosing footprint names and descriptions to list was the same for remote RSS
feeds as for local directories.

It might be a good idea to require two attributes of a symbol or footprint
to be name and short description, then all you need to show a
names and descriptions list is look inside the library item.
I like for the name of a symbol to be the filename without its suffix -- is
there any reason for any different definition for symbol name?


On 05/20/2011 04:14 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
> Do they add meta-data to the symbol, the footprint, or store it
> elsewhere?
>
> We*do*  have the option of changing our symbol-footprint library into
> a symbol-metadata-footprint scheme.  Maybe gnetlist is feeling left
> out, and wants its own library and GUI:-)

Separating the metadata would help create manageable libraries, since the
symbol can stay unchanged, stable in use.

I like adding the meta-data to a separate file, even if it associated
with a footprint first. For example:  SOIC-8.fp along with SOIC-8.fp.meta, which contains attribs
symbolname="FET_dual_11234.sym" footprintname="SOIC-8.fp" could be created first,
and a symbol for FET_dual_11234.sym defined later.

Many people would never do the above, but it would help with annotating as built layouts
back to a schematic.  Ordinarily, you would start with file FET_dual_11234.sym and
FET_dual_11234.I002.sym.meta containing attribs symbolname="FET_dual_11234.sym" footprintname="SOIC-8.fp", and
add file SOIC-8.fp later and never opt to create a file SOIC-8.fp.meta, and that's OK.

Any GUI tool that found both kinds of files could pop a dialog to ask, "which will overrule the other?"
This makes me think of a missing part -- instances will clobber names if not having an instance part
in the meta-data file name.  Instead of SOIC-8.fp.meta we would use SOIC-8.fp.I231.meta
which contains attribs symbolname="FET_dual_11234.sym" symbol-meta-data="FET_dual_11234.I002.sym.meta"
footprintname="SOIC-8.fp".

John Griessen
--
Ecosensory


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