Has there been any work or planning toward making it easier and less error-prone to produce schematics using “tidy” single-pin nets for power symbols and I/O port symbols?
By “tidy”, I mean that the completely unnecessary “:1” should not be shown on the schematic. I try to name my power nets with descriptive names (not just VDD, etc., in most cases). Also, the I/O port symbols (input-1.sym, etc.) are often very useful to produce clean schematics, but if you want a truly clean schematic without the clutter of dozens or more “:1” suffixes, the only way I know is to hide the ‘net’ attribute and use a separate ‘value’ attribute. The problem is that these must be kept synchronized or you will have serious errors in your circuit! You would have to manually check every pin for consistency. (NOTE: When I say “completely unnecessary”, I mean that I never use buses/multi-pin nets so the “:1” is redundant in this context for me. Of course it could be assumed if omitted... hint hint hidden option 3.) Currently I see only two choices when you use I/O port symbols or custom power symbols: Option 1: Put up with the clutter of the “:1” suffix on every net connection. Example: generic-power.sym Pros: + No risk of errors: the displayed text is the real net name. Cons: - Visual clutter in the schematic. - I never use multi-pin nets anyway; the “:1” is meaningless. This even worse when you have an array of nets that end in a digit. For instance, I have a circuit that has INNER1, INNER2, INNER3, etc., and these use input/output port symbols so they appear as INNER1:1, INNER2:1, INNER3:1, etc. on the schematic. It's very difficult to parse the actual net name by eye when there are dozens of such pins. Option 2: Hide the ‘net’ attribute and duplicate the name in a ‘value’ attribute. Example: input-2.sym (aften adding and editing ‘net’ and ‘value’ attribute values, hide the ‘net’ attribute) Pros: + Clean, readable schematic. Cons: - Risk of errors if ‘net’ and ‘value’ attribute disagree. - Tedious to edit both attributes for each I/O port symbol on large schematics. Hidden option 3: Make gschem assume “:1” for ‘net’ attribute values without a “:N” suffix. This seems like it would be an easy fix for the problems resulting from Option 1 and Option 2, but I'm no Scheme or gschem hacker. I understand that the ‘net’ attribute is used in a number of different ways, but for this specific purpose it would be nice to have a good solution if it's not too difficult. Another option would be to add a DRC check to the gnetlist backend to ensure that ‘net’ and ‘value’ attributes agree, thus eliminating at least the possibility of a hidden error in the schematic. Thoughts? Regards, Colin _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user