[geda-user] gEDA improvements suggestions

[Filippo Micheletti]

Hi there,
using gEDA I collected a list of stuffs which I think could be improved...
I know that only suggest improvements is not the best way to support the
project but maybe this feedback can be useful to some active developer...

About gschem:

- uniform some keyboard shortcuts and mouse behavior of the GUI with the
ones of the pcb GUI, for example let gschem drag schematic with mouse sx
button + move like pcb does, and so on;

- uniform some keyboard shortcuts with most diffused one, like for example
ctrl+F to start search, ctrl+S to save and so on;

- let gschem to be able to import symbols libraries also scanning in
subfolder of each in the gafrc file, like pcb does with footprints.

About pcb:

- snaps are a little bit poor at the moment, a more complete set of snaps
would be very useful, in particular to the edge and corners of shapes
(pads, polygons) and corners and tips of lines (the snap to the lines tip
should be improved, the actual one doesn't work so well). A panel or a
dedicated menu to manage snaps would be useful;

- I think the ability to change the shape of lines tip would be useful, at
the moment one can draw only lines with rounded tip, but in some cases to
be able to draw a line with squared tip can result very useful;

- I didn't find the way to rotate with an arbitrary angle the objects on
silk layer, maybe this can already be done and I just missed it...

- the same is for a "find" function (not the one referred to the keystroke
"F"), which allows user to fine an element with specific refdes on the
layout (this is useful to locate component on the board at soldering moment
when you realized it without silk...).

I hope this remarks can be useful, obviously they are just my point of view
strictly related to my use of gEDA, maybe other users can find different
priority for future releases improvements.

-Filippo-

[mskala-iYp5QZLjffFsCj9YYT8S7fd9D2ou9A/]

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- uniform some keyboard shortcuts and mouse behavior of the GUI with the
ones of the pcb GUI, for example let gschem drag schematic with mouse sx
button + move like pcb does, and so on;

Indeed. The gEDA FAQ makes a big deal of attempting to explain why a
loose federation of independent tools that do not work as a suite is
better than a suite of tools that *do* work together, but the explanation
is not at all convincing.

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- let gschem to be able to import symbols libraries also scanning in
subfolder of each in the gafrc file, like pcb does with footprints.

This can be done by using language like
(component-library-search "../geda-symbols")

instead of component-library in the gafrc file. I found that on one of
the Wiki pages.

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- snaps are a little bit poor at the moment, a more complete set of snaps
would be very useful, in particular to the edge and corners of shapes (pads,
polygons) and corners and tips of lines (the snap to the lines tip should be
improved, the actual one doesn't work so well). A panel or a dedicated menu
to manage snaps would be useful;

I'd like to be able to display one grid but snap to a smaller grid.

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- the same is for a "find" function (not the one referred to the keystroke
"F"), which allows user to fine an element with specific refdes on the
layout (this is useful to locate component on the board at soldering moment
when you realized it without silk...).

I think there is a select-by-name, which serves a similar purpose. It's
sometimes useful when auto-place has placed a component outside the bounds
of the board and I cannot select it with the mouse. PCB *really* needs to
allow selection outside the board bounds, if it ever allows components to
exist outside the board bounds.

[onetmt]

On 02/07/2014 15:40, Filippo Micheletti wrote:
[...]
[...]

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- the same is for a "find" function (not the one referred to the
keystroke "F"), which allows user to fine an element with specific
refdes on the layout (this is useful to locate component on the board at
soldering moment when you realized it without silk...).

It's Select->Select by name->Elements what's your looking for.

[Filippo Micheletti]

Thank you for replies, I found that:
- symbols subdirectories can be added with the component-library-search
function BUT it doesn't work well, in particular it cannot recognize the
${HOME} variable, as other functions do, like component-library, it's quite
annoying, but maybe it's just a little bug and can be resolved in future
versions.
- changing key bindings is possible too, using the same configuration
files, I will just define my custom bindings file...
I hope for snaps, I'm sure most of pcb users would appreciate a lot an
extended snap set!
See you


-Filippo-

Post by onetmt
[...]
[...]

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- the same is for a "find" function (not the one referred to the
keystroke "F"), which allows user to fine an element with specific
refdes on the layout (this is useful to locate component on the board at
soldering moment when you realized it without silk...).

It's Select->Select by name->Elements what's your looking for.
--
"It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account
Hofstadter's Law."

[Vladimir Zhbanov]

Post by Filippo Micheletti
- symbols subdirectories can be added with the component-library-search
function BUT it doesn't work well, in particular it cannot recognize
the ${HOME} variable, as other functions do, like component-library,
it's quite annoying, but maybe it's just a little bug and can be
resolved in future versions.

A while ago I've committed a patch for the 'component-library-search'
procedure to make it work with environment variables (many thanks to
Peter Brett, who has written all these functions and perfect
documentation on these, I mean geda-scheme.info).

For the previous/current geda-gaf versions you can make them esteem
the '${HOME}' variable by using a line like this in ~/.gEDA/gafrc:
(component-library-search (expand-env-variables "${HOME}/symbols/") "mylib:")

HTH,
Vladimir