Re: gEDA-user: gEDA/gaf capabilities

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 09:44 -0500, eswint@xxxxxx wrote:
> 
> I am looking using gEDA/gaf for my own activities and ran across an archived
> newsgroup exchange providing a critique of gEDA/gaf and a call for user input
> on what's important to them.  Is there a gEDA/gaf page with a checklist of
> capabilities, e.g. http://www.4pcb.com/index.php?load=content&page_id=46 ?

Such checklists will _always_ be horribly biased... If we are to take on
face value that there is _nothing_ important that the 4pcb software
can't do, then we'd be very naive.

I did look at the list in detail.. there are a few points where we
answer "no" or "weak suppport", however others where we'd answer "no,
and thats the way we like it", such as the avoidance of a single
integrated application for all tools. We focus on a very modular
approach, and it proves very flexible. We're also working on tighter
integration between these programs, but the distinction drawn in the
linked table that it should be a "single application" is bogus.

Some weaknesses / features we don't have, and comments......

We don't do a DRC restricted to certain components (I'm not sure why
you'd want to).

We don't do auto-placement (not for real layout anyway), this is a
rather tricky problem, probably requiring more black magic than
auto-routing. I'm pretty sure that in all systems, a layout engineer
will place the key components, even if they let an auto-placer deal with
less critical items.

We don't auto-route nets in schematic mode. This isn't a great weakness,
but perhaps a time-saving (optional) feature we'd consider adding in the
future.

We don't have context sensitive help. We do have a wiki full of
information, and a very active user-community, so help is easily
available (far better than most online help in many applications).

Our parts "database" is a key weakness, mostly due to the amount of work
involved maintaining a symbols / footprints database. There are a couple
of community driven sites which archive contributed symbols though, so
the shipped set of symbols isn't definitive. (We're actually hoping to
cut that set down to a bare minimum, and provide better means to manage
contributed symbol sources.)

We don't at present support text based coordinate entry, but its been
talked about and may be added in due course.

Copy-paste works intra-application instance, but not into the X11
buffers. This could be improved, but hasn't seemed to be a difficulty
for many people in practice. We support multiple copy-paste buffers in
both gschem and PCB, which can be a power-user feature.

PCB doesn't have a good footprint browser (preview - can be done and
search are notably missing).



Features not mentioned in the table... they probably don't have....


Output of schematic netlist to 30+ different formats (looking at the
exporters, there might be a few duplicates in functionality. There are
37 below, and it isn't hard to write new ones..)

gnet-allegro.scm     gnet-gsch2pcb.scm.orig     gnet-protelII.scm
gnet-bae.scm         gnetlist.scm               gnet-redac.scm
gnet-bom2.scm        gnet-mathematica.scm       gnet-spice.scm
gnet-bom.scm         gnet-maxascii.scm          gnet-spice-sdb.scm
gnet-calay.scm       gnet-osmond.scm            gnet-switcap.scm
gnet-cascade.scm     gnet-pads.scm              gnet-systemc.scm
gnet-drc2.scm        gnet-partslist1.scm        gnet-tango.scm
gnet-drc.scm         gnet-partslist2.scm        gnet-vams.scm
gnet-eagle.scm       gnet-partslist3.scm        gnet-verilog.scm
gnet-futurenet2.scm  gnet-partslist-common.scm  gnet-vhdl.scm
gnet-geda.scm        gnet-PCBboard.scm          gnet-vipec.scm
gnet-gossip.scm      gnet-pcbpins.scm
gnet-gsch2pcb.scm    gnet-PCB.scm


Schematic wide / design wide editing of component meta-data (attributes)
from a spread-sheet like application, "gattrib".

Scripting languages to perform operations (ok, the higher end tools have
this and probably exceed our capabilities, but still.. we have it).

Fully hierarchical design support

Workflow agnostic schematic editing.


-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)



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