On Sun, 2008-12-21 at 10:42 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote: > > I like the idea of having a netlist file, and whatever extra file(s) > > needed to specify the parts and their footprints. PCB can either watch > > those files, or re-read them at a button-press, then do its update > > without tying things to a gEDA schematics only flow. > > Thus, you are not the common case, and will not use the magic update > button.
Well, there is no reason the magic update button can't trigger a command to produce the netlist and parts-list files, then have PCB read them.. I guess the question here is this: Is the input which PCB reads a netlist + parts list with enough info to update the board? Or is it an action script which contains specific verbs, such as "place component X", "delete component Y"? This is more like the current gsch2pcb, which needs to grok what's already on the board, then issues instructions to make an update. I had thought we were leaning towards describing what "should be" on the board - at which point, the netlist + parts-list file formats become a more natural way to convey that information. I then don't need a lot of action verbs to describe what should be on my board, I need two: read_netlist (netlist.file) read_partlist (partlist.file) Lets say I have a "magic update button" in my project manger, which regenerates those files. I can then, via DBus execute those two actions to a copy of PCB which I know has my board open. OR; we could teach PCB to spot changes in those files it cares about on disk, and will automatically update once I've pressed the button to update the files in the project manager. IMO, Teaching a .pcb file what netlist and parts lists files it cares about is a much less hazardous thing to do than teaching it what executable commands to run. With a bit of technology, we don't even need a button press to spot those files have updated. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
