Re: gEDA-user: More strange ideas: Start PCB layout from symbols view

[Ben Jackson <ben@xxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 08:49:16PM +0100, Stefan Salewski wrote:
> Currently we start new layouts in PCB with a bunch of footprints auto
> dispersed.

I wrote a 'smart disperse' plugin:

	http://www.gedasymbols.org/user/ben_jackson/geda-user/smartdisperse.txt

You could try to improve the placement algorithm it uses, but it is at
least smart enough to do things like put current limiting resistors by
their connected components.

After I wrote that I realized that what I really wanted was a 'tetris'
plugin which uses the ordering hints like smartdisperse.  Instead of
just spreading the parts out everywhere it would give you the opportunity
to click to place each component in order, with buttons to resort the
list using various criteria (centered around a selected part, or whatever).

The main advantage there is that you could place each component by clicking
*once* rather than the more laborioius 1) find, 2) click & drag.

> Of course this is fully incompatible with gEDAs current design.

Not at all.  The netlister that makes PCBs could place the components
somewhere other than 0,0.  It just doesn't...

-- 
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben@xxxxxxx>
http://www.ben.com/


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