He also asks "if there is a manual so one doesn't have to permanently
work in a trial-error way or pestering people around". Is PCB manual of
this kind? Last time I remember the file format descriptions were
horribly obsolete.
I never have figured out a good way to deal with the file format
description in the manual.
There is a newlib document (not a complete gPCB manual) here:
http://www.brorson.com/gEDA/
The document source (OOO .sxw format) is available from there, as well
as .pdf. If somebody is interested in making a contribution to the
gEDA project, a quickie project is to take the .sxw version of the
doc, do some fact checking, and perhaps add some material we may have
missed. I eagerly await patches to the doc.
Stuart