On Wed, 2008-09-10 at 22:09 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote: > > I think we need to provide some hook about the lib search path to > > gsch2pcb. > > Well, yeah, I didn't suggest changing that part. > > > > We also need NetList(Clear) and NetList(Add,pin,pin[,...]) > > > > instead of just telling pcb to reload the netlist? > > My way doesn't need a separate file. We can already tell it to load a > netlist from a file. I suppose it's more consistent to tell pcb to > load from a file, since the file may exist from a previous run.
Supporting both would be good, although the main benefit I could see is in an online update (like xgsch2pcb does, but without the file-shuffling: backup on disk layout, save working layout, update with gsch2pcb, reload, replace backup) I think - for backwards compat, we need to be able to specify all the different ways gsch2pcb can find footprints, to PCB. (Unfortunately?). That is equivelants of: -d, --elements-dir D Search D for PCB file elements. These defaults are searched if they exist: ./packages, /usr/local/share/pcb/newlib, /usr/share/pcb/newlib, (old pcb) /usr/local/lib/pcb_lib, /usr/lib/pcb_lib, (old pcb) /usr/local/pcb_lib -f, --use-files Force using file elements over m4 PCB elements for new footprints even though m4 elements are searched for first and may have been found. -s, --skip-m4 Skip m4 when looking for footprints. The default is to use m4 (which is what previous versions did). --m4-file F.inc Use m4 file F.inc in addition to the default m4 files ./pcb.inc and ~/.pcb/pcb.inc. --m4-pcbdir D Use D as the PCB m4 files install directory instead of the default: /home/pcjc2/geda/share/pcb/m4 I might be inclined so remove --m4-pcbdir --m4-file at the expense of backwards compatibility for an (i'd guess) rarely used feature. David: Do you use these to hook in your custom M4 footprints? Some other gsch2pcb options we might need to have equivelants of: -p, --preserve Preserve elements in PCB files which are not found in the schematics. Note that elements with an empty element name (schematic refdes) are never deleted, so you really shouldn't need this option. An interesting one: --empty-footprint name See the project.sample file. # If you assign a name other than "none" to empty-footprint, then components # with that name will be omitted instead and you will need to use the verbose # option to see any warnings. This is just a convenience way to have symbols # in a schematic which will not be mounted on the PC board and to shut up # gsch2pcb warnings about it. But note that if you make net connections # to these symbols, they will be in the netlist and PCB will warn if the # netlist is loaded. So, maybe connections to such parts should be drawn # with a graphical line and not a net? Perhaps ones we don't care to keep?: -r, --remove-unfound Don't include references to unfound elements in the generated .pcb files. Use if you want PCB to be able to load the (incomplete) .pcb file. This is the default behavior. -k, --keep-unfound Keep include references to unfound elements in the generated .pcb files. Use if you want to hand edit or otherwise preprocess the generated .pcb file before running pcb. So, I guess there are some options. Teach PCB to perform the update logic from a series of action commands naming the components which are supposed to be in the layout. You might have to block around this a wrapper like "BeginUpdate" and "EndUpdate", so PCB can identify those elements which are ON the board, but shouldn't be. I don't really like this idea. So, we may need the write-out of existing elements / properties on the board - and let gsch2pcb issue "DeleteComponent(...)" calls for items it doesn't want on the board. I really (really) like this idea, and the idea of it being a VHDL like netlist is VERY exciting. PCB could also export its idea of connectivity - and this gets us very close to being able to do some clever back-annoation). -- 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-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user