Re: gEDA-user: newbie, couple of Q's about gschem

[Larry Doolittle <ldoolitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Guys -

On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 10:22:52AM -0700, Chris Albertson wrote:
> On 10/15/07, Greg Cunningham <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-10-15 at 18:10 +0100, Peter TB Brett wrote:
> > > On Monday 15 October 2007 17:27:43 Chris Albertson wrote:
> > > > Gschem's primary purpose is schematic capture.  If what you want is
> > > > publication quality schematic drawings use XCircuit.
> > > > http://opencircuitdesign.com/xcircuit/.
> > >
> > > I'm afraid that this is just not true.  It's entirely possible to
> > > produce "publication quality" (whatever that is) diagrams in gschem, and
> > > indeed I have done so, for reports etc.  I admit that it is hard [chop]
> > > I've also done some electrical diagrams for reports using Inkscape,
> > > which worked surprisingly well.
> > ...
> > I think Chris's angle is the font/symbol line 'quality' (can't think of
> > a better term) A good parallell is computer generated music scores.
> > Most MS free/cheap packages produce a technically correct score that is
> > awful for a musician to read. Lilypond OTOH, produces a score that is
> > *much* easier for a musician to read.  It emulates the 19th century
> > score engraving craftmanship where score 'readability' reached it's
> > pinnacle.
> 
> Much depends on your critiera for "quality".  For example many people
> are happy with the typesetting abilities of basic work processors like
> Microsoft Word.  But if you compare side by side to Don, Knuth's "tex"
> there are differences.
> 
> There is a difference between how you draw on a computer screen
> for schematic capture and how you should draw for publication in
> print.   I think it would be great if you could enter the schematic just
> once and have the netlist converted for quality output just like you
> can have it convertert for Spaic and PCB.   Many you might have an
> attribute "Postscript Symbol"  These symbols can do intelegent functions
> like allow fonts to be globally changed and test remain upright even if the
> symbol is rotated.

Speaking as someone who uses TeX and Lilypond, let me cycle back to
the beginning of the thread: XCircuit not only makes high visual quality
publication-ready schematics, it also exports PCB-compatible netlists.
So for simple circuits where quality documentation matters, it makes a
lot of sense, and you _do_ only have to enter the schematic once.

OTOH, cajoling xcircuit to do real repeat blocks, BOMs, and other engineering
nitty-gritty is not fun.  Possible [http://recycle.lbl.gov/llrf4] for a
programmer, but not something I'd reccommend to a novice.

   - Larry


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