Re: gEDA-user: next PCB release - 1.99za vs 4.0

[Mark Rages <markrages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Link <link@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Some things I regard as quite important:
>
> * Variable-angle arcs. 90 degrees is extremely limiting. gschem does this
> right.
>

Yes! Yes!  Not all designs are rectilinear.

> * Having all shapes that are supported for traces supported for footprint
> copper (arcs, polygons, circles, etcetera).

A shape I've often wanted on a pad is circle with the sides cut off.
This is slightly different than an oval.  Something like Inkscape's
boolean operations would be excellent.

> * Unification of shortcuts in gschem and PCB, or at least an easy option for
> PCB to mimic gschem's shortcuts.

Yes.  Better yet, support the modern-standard shortcuts first.  ctrl-z
for undo, etc.

> * Better support for free-rotated components: assert that pads at funky
> angles are rendered correctly, fix autorouter for components at weird angles
> (the latest git version has a tendency to either ignore the route command or
> to segfault, depending on the specifics), add rotation to the ctrl-R report,
> etcetera.

How about text at not-90 degree angles?  Or support for rotated square
pads (I know, the file format doesn't support those two.)

> * Ability to copy a footprint's name from the library dialogue (so it can be
> pasted into gschem's attribute list).

What a sad feature request.  But PCBgschem is such a power bag of
tools that selecting from a dropdown in gschem would be way too
limiting, amirite John D?

> * Ability to edit netlist in-situ (possibly by drawing on the rat lines
> layer) - e.g, when you want to add a heatsink soldered to ground, it will
> always show up as shorted until the netlist is edited to incorporate it.

A desirable feature, but drawing on rat lines seems less useful to me
than just popping a text editor and editing the netlist directly.

>
> * Last but not least, blind and buried vias. It's big, reasonably important,
> and has been on people's wish lists for years.

Yes!

I have some more feature requests for PCB.

Editing on the grid has got to go!  Counting grid points is the worst
possible way to enter positional information into a computer.

- Make every field in object reports editable.

- Allow direct entry of offsets and absolute positions when editing.

- Add "offset" and "trim" feature à la 2D CAD programs.

- Add "point to tangent" and "tangent to tangent" line drawing feature
à la 2D CAD programs.

Also, trim polygons against "outline" layer.  Fix polygons in general.

PCB's editing is just weak sauce.  My latest design, I edited in qcad
entirely, and just imported to PCB as a last step before making
Gerbers.   This was only possible because the design was very simple
with just a handful of nets.   I've since purchased a license for
Altium, which has its own kind of badness, but at least it lets me
type in numbers.

Regards,
Mark
markrages@gmail
-- 
Mark Rages, Engineer
Midwest Telecine LLC
markrages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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