First, I wanted to write a quick note applauding the efforts at building
a suite of design tools like this for linux, that are free as well! I've
been using linux the last couple of years as my primary development
platform, and have been recently looking at design tools in this space,
so I will no longer have to rely on vmware running windows.
Anyway, on to my main point. Last night I downloaded the FC4 rpms (which
work great by the way), and started to evaluate gschem. I noticed a
fairly decent number of user interface issues that ended being fairly
frustrating fairly quickly.
I think if one of the goals of this project is to be picked up and used
by more and more users as their suite of design tools, a number of user
interface improvements could help this considerably.
To be specific, here are a few of the first couple of things I noticed.
These things, though as small as they may seem, only serve to raise the
barrier of use, as applications (and drawing applications for that
matter, which are similar in a number of aspects) across Windows and
Macs all operate in very similar ways. Rather that just ditch the
application and move on to the next, I figured I should email and let
you know.
What I've noticed so far that would be nice to change:
- Don't use the middle button for hardly anything. Number of reasons
here, one of which is linux typically uses this to paste from the
clipboard/kill ring, which would be acceptable. Also, if the application
was to be run under windows using Cygwin, or whatever, it wouldn't be
usable.
- Menu options that have command shortcuts should use the form
Ctrl+<key> instead of a one-two letter combination.
- Create standard operating cut/copy/paste (would probably eliminate the
buffer menu and the 'copy mode' type usage).
- Though not critical, I did notice it happening frequently: I would
move or resize a component or net, and I'd have to manually go to
View/Redraw to redraw a missing line or something. This option should
not need to exist at all.
- I found the fairly simple act of moving components and nets difficult.
This was primarily due to having to use the middle button. These types
of operations should be seamless to anyone that has used a drawing
program before.
- If menu options indicate some current state (like, Options/Net Rubber
Band), they should change depending on the state, for example, if the
option is on, add a check mark next to the option.
These are a few of the primary things I noticed that I think can easily
turn people away from this program, and if fixed, will have a great
value. Depending on how my search for other EDA tools goes, I may
download the source and start fixing some of these myself.
Thanks for a moment of your time, any comments appreciated,
Aaron
