Hello fellow gEDA users, There is one rule about gschem symbols the rationale for which evades me. The symbol creation guide says that the device= attribute should be made invisible and not used as a label, and that the label should be a separate text object. And indeed all standard symbols follow this rule, as does tragesym. But why? To me it seems much more logical and consistent with the light symbols model to use the device= attribute as the label -- this way I can have a light symbol with a default device= value/label and override it in schematics. Here are just a few examples of how this is useful:
* I can use a light 74xx symbol and turn it into a 74ALSxx or 74FCTxx or whatever in a given design, and have my chosen logic family reflected in the label on the schematic. * I can make a light 29x040 symbol and change it into a 29F040 or Am29LV040B or whatever as needed -- surely the latter labels look much better on a schematic than a nebulous 29x040. * I can have a library symbol for 26LS31 and use it in a schematic for a design that uses an SN75173 (same thing but tolerant of +-12V inputs). But I would want it to say SN75173 rather than 26LS31 on the printed schematic so that it doesn't get immediately rejected for failing to meet the requirement of handling EIA-232 inputs. All of these (and countless other examples that I leave for others to imagine) are trivial to do when the label is the value of the device= attribute which gets overridden as necessary. But a non-attribute text label can't be overridden. So what then is the rationale for the rule of having a separate text label and what are the consequences for breaking it? MS _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user