> In my view, just as gEDA/gaf can netlist to any backend, > so should PCB read an arbitrary action list generated from any tool.
It *can*, which is why the bulk of the information comes across as an action script. However, I'm also trying to optimize the *common* case, which is, pcb used with gschem. A single button in pcb that imports any changes from the schematic will be what most users want, and the LF tasks are about simplifying the user's experience. > The action list (forward annotation file) should be tool neutral. It will be. I wonder if the pcb could embed the "right" command to use to generate the action script? The default will be to run gsch2pcb but it could be changed to run some other script (including makefiles). You could hook it up to Kicad at that point. However, the focus should be on optimizing the common use case. > * Get rid of gsch2pcb altogether, and just make gnetlist write out a > fully developed PCB forward annotation file. My experiments are along that route. PCB runs "gnetlist -g pcblf ..." and sucks up the resulting action file. > Propagate them as optional footprint attributes accompanied by an > identifying tag. Well, yes, that's what element attributes are *for* :-) > Can you put any new/updated components in an area *outside* the board? If we do the footprint editor task right, we'll have to teach pcb to display multiple "boards" simultaneously. One of them can be a separate board that contains only unplaced elements. Else, we can just store them in a list. Clicking an element in the list puts it in the paste buffer, pasting it removes it from the list. > This info is useful not only for PCB, but also for situations like > when a user wants to print all sheets in a schematic (another topic > of recent discussion). No reason why those can't read/write the pcb file, too. Or pass actions to pcb to set the schematic list. Or pass an action to pcb to trigger the update. _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
