Re: gEDA-user: Strange user interface behavior with gschem-1.6.2.20110115

[Josef Wolf <jw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Sep 04, 2011 at 11:23:54PM +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote:
> Josef Wolf wrote:
> 
> > In the attached schmatic, when I try to draw a net from U6-pin27 to
> > the gate of Q6, a little circle appears on the nearest pin,
> > indicating where the connection would be "autocompleted" to. But even
> > if the circle appears at the gate of Q6, at the moment I click to
> > make the connection, it jumps to the gate of Q4, effectively
> > shortening pin1 with pin28 of U6.
> 
> The autocompletion does not avoid other net leines like an auto router
> would. It just acts like gschem would if you clicked the marked point 
> manually. In this case, it starts a net line at pin 26, draws to the 
> right until it is below the sensitive point of the gate of Q6. Then it 
> would continue to draw teh net vertically up to the gate. But wait!

So this feature can save at most one click? At the expense of using the undo
functionality fairly often? In fact, I was trying to find a way to draw the
connection in question for several hours before I posted to the list.

> There is already a net at the corner of this net -- the net that connects
> pin 28 with the gate of Q4. A general rule for nets in gschem is: "If
> the endpoint of a segment hits another net, these two will be connected."
> So the line starting from pin 26 happily connects to the line starting
> at pin 28.

IMHO, this works against user expectation. After all, the whole point of the
circle is to signal the user where the connection would be done. Connecting
to anything other is not exactly what the user would expect. From the
perspective of the user it is totally irrelevant what algorithm is used
internally.

> > Is
> > there a way to deactivate it? Or at least configure it to behave in a
> > sane way?
> 
> IMHO, it already behaves in a sane way. You just have to realize, 
> that it is not an autorouter, but a mouse click prediction facility.  
> (Auto routing for nets would be a great, nerdy feature :-)

I tend to disagree here. It works against user expectation. It _would_ be
a useful feature _if_ it would be disabled automatically in situations where
it would connect to something different than the point where the circle is
shown.


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