Re: gEDA-user: why some skip KiCAD and gEDA

[Gabriel Paubert <paubert@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 10:27:52PM +0100, Peter Clifton wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-09-08 at 13:43 -0600, Mark Rages wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Colin D Bennett <colin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:50:33 +0200
> > > Stefan Salewski <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > >> For me, I never loved the many tool changes, and I was never able to
> > >> remember all the key combinations. "er" is edit rotate, "ve" is view
> > >> extend. For the later I am not really sure -- have not used gschem for a
> > >> year.
> > >
> > > Don't forget, while âveâ is View Extents, âevâ alters all invisible
> > > text and attributes making them visible!
> > >
> > > It is not like âenâ which just toggles the display mode to show
> > > invisible text, but âevâ actually changes the entities.
> 
> For my money, we could kill "ev" and its menu item completely. I don't
> think it serves any useful purpose, and has caused me many a headache.
> 

Full agreement here.

One feature I would like to see in gschem is to have two grids:

- the default grid when moving objects or anything

- a finer grid automatically used when moving a single attribute

I find myself very often switching to a finer grid when editing
attributes to put them in the right place, especially in denser
parts of the schematics where proximity hints at which component
the attribute refers. And then I switch back to the default grid
when I'm done with the attributes (otherwise I inevatibly end up
with off-grid pins). It's the constant switching back and forth 
that annoys me.

OrCad had this 20 years ago: it automatically used a 1/10 pin spacing
grid when moving attributes.

For the GUI I don't know whether you would have to put two grid
settings (with limits) or keep a single grid and use a selectable
fraction of the main grid (1/2, 1/5, 1/10).

I really don't mind changing grids for the other case where I have
to, which is when drawing symbols. You've really no choice in this
case: user settable grid is better than no snap mode (which gschem
allows to use as a fallback in any case).

Personally, I have no problems with the two key shortcuts in gschem,
now that cut/copy/paste/undo/redo use standard accelerators: there
are far too many commands to map them to single keystrokes. Besides
that if you use use special characters, they may be impossible
to type with a single hand on some keyboard layouts, like | for thin 
lines in  PCB, which is AltGr (ISO_Level3_Shift in X keysyms) 1 (the
digit), the single AltGr key being at the right of the space bar
(I have fairly large hands, and yet I can't type it with a single hand,
so I have to move my right hand off the mouse). 

Staying with 2 Latin alphabetical characters (which are present on 
basically all keyboard layouts and do not require finger acrobacies)
avoids these problems, and may even be better for some kinds of
disabilities.

	Regards,
	Gabriel


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