The "^spice directive" feature was something I had asked Bill To put in. For the very reason you mentioned...I found it Painful that the spice-directive symbol could only handle single Lines. If that symbol could handle multi-line, it's the better Way to go.
/sri -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stuart Brorson Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 1:01 PM To: Bill Cox Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: gEDA-user: Comments after successfully running gnetman . . . . Hi Bill, I have gotten gnetman now running on my machine. My last hurdle to overcome involved updating my ${HOME}/.gEDA/gnetmanrc to: (reset-component-library) (reset-source-library) (component-library "/home/sources/gnetman/sym") (source-library "/home/sources/gnetman/sch") (component-library "/home/sources/gnetman/test") In other words, I should have RTFM and placed the "source-library" pointer into the RC file. As far as gnetman goes, I think I get it. The top level schematic holds a bunch of symbols (naturally). When gnetman creates the SPICE netlist, it spits out a SPICE card for each symbol it finds. Additionally, if the symbol itself has an attached "source=foo.sch" attribute, then gnetman finds the file foo.sch, netlists it, and sticks the netlist into the top level netlist as a .SUBCKT. I presume that this procedure is recursive, right? So, the general principle is that if gnetman finds a "source" attribute in a .sym file, it will treat the associated source file as the underlaying hierarchical block. Am I right? Some comments: * First off, putting gnetmanrc into the ${HOME}/.gEDA/gnetmanrc directory is a good thing. If I am not mistaken, no other prog in gEDA does this. Both gnetlist and gschem just look for RC files in the global location, and then in the local working directory. I think that having a ${HOME}/.gEDA/ directory with RC files is a good thing 'cause it allows individual users to have their own custom setups which apply to all their projects, but not to other users. This becomes important if/when gEDA is used in a larger environment by many engineers sharing e.g. an NFS file system (i.e. in a commercial design shop). Perhaps we should incorporate into future releases of gEDA the following search path: ${GEDA_HOME}/share/gEDA -> ${HOME}/.gEDA -> local directory. * It would be nice if the "source" attribute showed up in the symbol's list of attributes when you double click on it at the schematic level. Indeed, I can imagine that you might sometimes want to attach a different "source" attribute when editing the schematic. As gschem currently works, the "source" attribute is a "schematic only" attribute. However, you are attaching it to the symbol. As I see it, "source" should be a "symbol and schematic" attribute. I have snooped around gschem to see how to enable this, but haven't figured out how to do this yet. * It would be nice if gschem offered you the possibility of editing either the symbol *or* the underlying schematic. For example, in Viewdraw if you right click on a symbol you have the option to either "edit symbol" or "edit underlying schematic". Gschem should behave the same way. I know this is not your probem, Bill, but rather a change to gschem. Indeed, I have long wished for this, but since hierarchy wasn't really up to snuff in gschem, felt that it wasn't completely necessary. Now, however, this is a different story. * You are entering SPICE directives onto the schematic as a text annotation like: ^.trans 0.1n 2n This kind of violates the idea that you place components into your schematic to instantiate a SPICE card in your netlist. It is also a little dangerous, because the netlister then incorporates text into the netlist, and text should only be annotations. (OK, it's not that dangerous, but you get my point: Text should be comments, and not cause anything to be netlisted.) I recommend using the spice-directive symbol instead: spice-directive-1.sym It lives in the spice directory of the component library. I suppose that the spice-directive symbol could use some upgrading so that you can type in multi-line text. This is another one of my wishes: when you double click on e.g. the spice-directive component, gschem opens up a text entry box where you can type in lots of text, not just one line. This, however, is a big project. . . . . I have cc'ed geda-user on this e-mail in case my comments are of interest to anybody else. Meanwhile, I will continue to play with gnetman. Thanks for the contribution! Stuart
