Re: gEDA-user: Updating footprints in place

["John Luciani" <jluciani@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/7/07, Randall Nortman <geda-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If I have made a change to a footprint, is there an easy way to update
> a layout that uses that footprint, the way gschem can update embedded
> symbols?  That is, replace the element on the layout with the new
> footprint, using the same position and rotation.  (Obviously, a DRC
> check would be highly advisable after doing something like this.)
>
> I recognize that I could do this manually, but that sounds like a lot
> of trouble.  If anybody has already scripted this, that would be very
> helpful.  It seems like it should be possible, since the original
> footprint name seems to be stored in the pcb file (at least when it
> was put there by gsch2pcb, which is how all of mine get there).  In
> the worst case, I think some cut & paste with a text editor on the pcb
> file is probably easier than trying to do it manually in the GUI and
> get everything lined up properly (at least for newlib footprints -- m4
> is not friendly to cut & paste).  Am I right?  Copy and paste the new
> footprint, copy in coordinates and rotation from old footprint, remove
> old footprint?  And the coordinates within the element seem to be
> relative to the element's base coordinates and rotation, so nothing
> else to do, right?

You could definately do it with a script but unless you have a lot of footprints
to update or have to update a number of layouts it may not be worth it.
The cleanup after the script finishes may be more difficult than the cleanup
prior to doing a manual replace. If your components are on the grid manual
replacement goes quickly.

I have a couple of scripts that do component placement in PCB files.

I have a write-up on scripted component placement at ---

http://www.luciani.org/not-quite-ready/not-quite-ready-index.html

My script pcb-matrix replicates a pcb layout. The script reads in the position
of each element in the original PCB layout adds an offset and then places
the element in a new layout

http://www.luciani.org/geda/util/util-index.html#matrix

(* jcl *)

-- 
http://www.luciani.org


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