Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
> IMHO, this should not be plural. That is, a getting started should > decide for one work-flow and stick with it. As John points out, there's more to geda than making circuit boards. So, tutorials for schematics->pcb, schematics->sim, verilog->sim, etc. Then, within each case, beginner vs advanced, like one schematic to a two-layer board, then multiple schematics, then heirarchical to many-layer with BOM and gerber, etc. > > showing off the most current and > > I'd say, tutorials are not a place to show off, but to teach. > (Mayby I am overly picky with words...) I meant, for example, using PCB's importer instead of gsch2pcb, or snapshots of the GTK interface instead of the ancient Xaw one. > > newbie-friendly ways of using the tools. > ^^^ > Here comes the hard part: "What exactly is newbie-friendly?" To me, this means "if you've never used gEDA before". I like to assume that anyone attempting to do EDA already has some electronics background and is familiar with their computer's OS, but hasn't touched EDA yet. The kinds of advanced techniques we talk about in the geda-user list is not something I want to expose a new user to until they understand the basic functionality of the toolchain as a whole. > Is it a step-by-step walk through a minimum manual set-up of a project? > Or is a scripted set-up wich results in a full fledged project dir > complete with local configs and makefiles? Both have their pros and cons. I like to use toy designs that demonstrate the techniques, and leave it up to the user to apply those techniques to more complex designs. See http://www.delorie.com/pcb/docs/gs/gs.html#Your-First-Board At this stage, the tutorial should be end-to-end so that the user gets a sense of accomplishing something without the frustration of the big learning curve. > > * Replacements for the reference manuals. > > Reference manuals should be comprehensive, accurate and reflect the > status of a specific version. Overall style and readability are less > a concern. This calls for tight coupling to the source and inclusion > in the make tool chain. The concept of collaborative online editing > does not mix well with such a scripted approach. It is part of the > source and should be treated as such. IMHO it needs more than just a source extraction. There's some overview information that needs to be in there - the WHY of everything, not just the WHAT. > > * Internals docs for new developers. > > This is clearly a task for core developers and way beyond > the scope of what I intend to start. Yup. Don't worry about it, just keep in mind that it'll be out there at some point. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
DJ Delorie wrote: >> I still have to decide, where to start. An overview? A getting >> started? A HOWTO? A table of contents to be filled? > > Based on what kinds of questions I tend to answer in irc and email, I > think the relative priority should be: > > * Introductory tutorials that demonstrate the most common flows, IMHO, this should not be plural. That is, a getting started should decide for one work-flow and stick with it. A reader should not feel the necessity to decide between options before he/she can grasp the consequences. On the other hand, the flexibilities should not be completely hidden, either. How about this: Redo the toy task of the getting-started with different work-flows. > showing off the most current and I'd say, tutorials are not a place to show off, but to teach. (Mayby I am overly picky with words...) > newbie-friendly ways of using the tools. ^^^ Here comes the hard part: "What exactly is newbie-friendly?" Is it a step-by-step walk through a minimum manual set-up of a project? Or is a scripted set-up wich results in a full fledged project dir complete with local configs and makefiles? Both have their pros and cons. > * How-to's for tasks which are less common, showing off the "toolkit" > features. I like to imagine this in the form of show-casing real world projects which demonstrate how specific tasks can be achieved. Ideally, the show-cases would include source files at different stages. Topics for advanced use: * drawing symbols * creating footprints manually on PCB canvas * creating footprints with the various generators * scripted printing * use of makefiles * a self contained project dir * simple hierarchy * hierarchy with sub sheets used several times * layout with repetative portions * source control with git Additional items: * A vademecum of keyboard accels, actions, file formats and important command line options. This is kind of a reference manual light. * the history of geda, gaf, pcb, etc. * getting started with simulation (unfortunately, I am a complete noob for this) > * Replacements for the reference manuals. Reference manuals should be comprehensive, accurate and reflect the status of a specific version. Overall style and readability are less a concern. This calls for tight coupling to the source and inclusion in the make tool chain. The concept of collaborative online editing does not mix well with such a scripted approach. It is part of the source and should be treated as such. > * Internals docs for new developers. This is clearly a task for core developers and way beyond the scope of what I intend to start. Anyway, I wouldn't sort the priority of these documents in any specific order. All of them are vital for the project -- each in a different way. ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 Moderation of geda-user seems to be lifted, lately. I am still unhappy with it. Why? Because it is completely nontransparent. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On Sep 12, 2011, at 8:05 AM, John Hudak wrote: > So, the doc would have two sections: There's nothing whatever preventing you from creating gEDA documentation and publishing it on your own site (or gedasymbols.org: even us black sheep are accepted there). That's what Stuart Brorson did when he created his great tutorial, even though he was an insider. John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ j...@noqsi.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
My suggestion is to first create an outline. The first n sections should be in tutorial form, using a small example, and focusing on the main steps, beginning with installation of the tool(s), problem statement (going from schematic to board layout to what needs to shipped to a board house). This section should contain a number of subsections (1-2 pages in length for each subsection) that is a susccinct description of the the task. Related, but not main stream topics can be forward referenced to another section later in the document. For example, making a design from the built in libaraies would be in the first major section, with a forward pointer to a detailed section about how to make your own objects in libaries, and yet another subsection could deal with library management (concepts and approaches, perhaps with one example illustrated - for example, managing libraries on a personal workstation). So, the doc would have two sections: Section 1 - Main tutorial Each subsection in the tutorial would be listed in the outline, so one could read through the outline and see the steps involved in producing a board. Section 2 - Expanded topics referenced in the tutorial Each subsection in this section would address a specific topic referenced in Section 1. Each subsection should be self contained, ie. how to create a symbols, how to manage symbol libraries, etc. Lots of screen shots should be in both sections as appropriate I would be happy to review the outline and the development, and provide feedback. -John On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak <[1]k...@familieknaak.de> wrote: Abhijit Kshirsagar wrote: > Somehow missed this thread and replied on the other one... Count me > in for documentation. Please let me know what I can do. I still have to decide, where to start. An overview? A getting started? A HOWTO? A table of contents to be filled? > Some of the documentation I have written previously is here: > gEDA-Tutorials.pdf on > [2]https://sites.google.com/site/abhijit86k/linux/geda Nice. ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: [3]k...@familieknaak.de [4]http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 Moderation of geda-user seems to be lifted somewhat, lately. I am still unhappy with it. Why? Because it is completely nontransparent. ___ geda-user mailing list [5]geda-user@moria.seul.org [6]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:k...@familieknaak.de 2. https://sites.google.com/site/abhijit86k/linux/geda 3. mailto:k...@familieknaak.de 4. http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 5. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 6. http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
> I still have to decide, where to start. An overview? A getting started? > A HOWTO? A table of contents to be filled? Based on what kinds of questions I tend to answer in irc and email, I think the relative priority should be: * Introductory tutorials that demonstrate the most common flows, showing off the most current and newbie-friendly ways of using the tools. * How-to's for tasks which are less common, showing off the "toolkit" features. * Replacements for the reference manuals. * Internals docs for new developers. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Abhijit Kshirsagar wrote: > Somehow missed this thread and replied on the other one... Count me > in for documentation. Please let me know what I can do. I still have to decide, where to start. An overview? A getting started? A HOWTO? A table of contents to be filled? > Some of the documentation I have written previously is here: > gEDA-Tutorials.pdf on > https://sites.google.com/site/abhijit86k/linux/geda Nice. ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 Moderation of geda-user seems to be lifted somewhat, lately. I am still unhappy with it. Why? Because it is completely nontransparent. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Hey, Somehow missed this thread and replied on the other one... Count me in for documentation. Please let me know what I can do. Some of the documentation I have written previously is here: gEDA-Tutorials.pdf on https://sites.google.com/site/abhijit86k/linux/geda ~Abhijit On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 21:28, Vladimir Zhbanov wrote: > On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 10:51:31PM +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: >> I am close to start off a gEDA wikibook (http://en.wikibooks.org). >> Would you join the effort? >> > > How about updating the existing wiki documentation? > - Gschem User Guide is outdated. > - PCB Manual is outdated. > - Circuit Simulation HOWTO is outdated. > - man pages are outdated (do we need them in the wiki?) > - and other documents I cannot remember just now. > > Yes, there are users reading the docs and searching for it. And if they > can't find them, they look at other products. (I found a few questions > on Russian web-sites where people asked about translated geda doc and > got answers that they could use KiCad instead.) > > -- > VZh > > > ___ > geda-user mailing list > geda-user@moria.seul.org > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user > ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 10:51:31PM +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: > I am close to start off a gEDA wikibook (http://en.wikibooks.org). > Would you join the effort? > How about updating the existing wiki documentation? - Gschem User Guide is outdated. - PCB Manual is outdated. - Circuit Simulation HOWTO is outdated. - man pages are outdated (do we need them in the wiki?) - and other documents I cannot remember just now. Yes, there are users reading the docs and searching for it. And if they can't find them, they look at other products. (I found a few questions on Russian web-sites where people asked about translated geda doc and got answers that they could use KiCad instead.) -- VZh ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak <[1]k...@familieknaak.de> wrote: Dan Roganti wrote: > I'll be glad to help anyone in this development group with this > documentation work. I am close to start off a gEDA wikibook ([2]http://en.wikibooks.org). Would you join the effort? sure, count me in ! =Dan References 1. mailto:k...@familieknaak.de 2. http://en.wikibooks.org/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 10:51:31PM +0200, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: > Dan Roganti wrote: > > > I'll be glad to help anyone in this development group with this > > documentation work. > > I am close to start off a gEDA wikibook (http://en.wikibooks.org). > Would you join the effort? > I'd be happy to contribute when I have free time (or am procrastinating). -- Andrew Poelstra Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net "Do whatever you want. Do what you think is important. Everybody is an individual." --Ron Paul ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Dan Roganti wrote: > I'll be glad to help anyone in this development group with this > documentation work. I am close to start off a gEDA wikibook (http://en.wikibooks.org). Would you join the effort? ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 12:13 PM, John Griessen <[1]j...@ecosensory.com> wrote: I can see a core set of plugins shipping with the source, but not all. I don't see it as a big deal though, since if a feature is really "core" it will be in the core, so not shipping plugins is natural. They're not core. functions. Documenting them however is a big deal. We mostly need documentation for enlisting more users. I'll be glad to help anyone in this development group with this documentation work. I can offer a couple hours per week on this. The time is readily available to me these days, as now all my kids are in college, so more time for me :) After that, we need a good beginner user interface that doesn't kill any GUI or command-line functions that are currently customizable . I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this. Other than good set of introductory docs, a tutorial, examples, such as those on DJ Delorie's website - you would like an additional front end GUI ? I would suggest additional ways to elaborate the steps in the tutorial - something I can include in my ToDo if you'd like. =Dan References 1. mailto:j...@ecosensory.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Hi all, > -Original Message- > From: geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org > [mailto:geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org] On Behalf Of DJ Delorie > Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2011 2:39 AM > To: geda-u...@seul.org > Subject: Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...) > > > > > https://github.com/bert/pcb-plugins.git > > > > This URL gives me "404 This is not the web page you are > looking for." > > It works fine once you realize you have to take the .git off > to change it from a repository to a web page. Seems a silly > detail to me, but that's how it's set up on github. > > Yes, you're right, I accedentally gave the git clone URI. Sorry if I wasted some of your spare cycles. Kind regards, Bert Timmerman. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
> > https://github.com/bert/pcb-plugins.git > > This URL gives me "404 This is not the web page you are looking for." It works fine once you realize you have to take the .git off to change it from a repository to a web page. Seems a silly detail to me, but that's how it's set up on github. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Bert Timmerman wrote: >> Is there even a comprehensive list of plugins that are done >> at a single place? > > https://github.com/bert/pcb-plugins.git This URL gives me "404 This is not the web page you are looking for." :-| ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
Hi Bob, > -Original Message- > From: geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org > [mailto:geda-user-boun...@moria.seul.org] On Behalf Of Bob Paddock > Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 2:38 AM > To: gEDA user mailing list > Subject: Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...) > > > Documenting them however is a big deal. > > Is there even a comprehensive list of plugins that are done > at a single place? > > > https://github.com/bert/pcb-plugins.git Git clone if you like ;-) All bit rotten due to the nm-units and other less recent changes in upstream pcb git-HEAD. I will try to look into it and get it to compile against at least the latest stable release 20100929. Patches are welcome @ https://launchpad.net/pcb-plugins , or better, include them plugins in upstream ;-) Kind regards, Bert Timmerman. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
> Documenting them however is a big deal. Is there even a comprehensive list of plugins that are done at a single place? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
> I can see a core set of plugins shipping with the source, but not all. I can see us breaking out some of the core actions into a plugins directory, and importing some public plugins there too. Might be a good way to manage our "library" of actions. > I think it would help a lot if the scheme or c code underlying > functions showed in the log window in a way that can be cut and > pasted to execute it again, or create a script that can be run with > a button. pcb --verbose does that, but there's still some OOB stuff that doesn't pass through the action layer, like cursor position. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: plugins (was: How can you help...)
On 09/05/2011 09:33 AM, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: Also, they tend to bit-rot and break when the main source moves on. That's why they are separate. There is not enough coding/testing man-or-woman-power to pull all conceivable plugins along with core changes. Seems obvious. The ones that are truly wanted will get updated. And you can develop, customize and use them without a recompile cycle. I can see a core set of plugins shipping with the source, but not all. I don't see it as a big deal though, since if a feature is really "core" it will be in the core, so not shipping plugins is natural. They're not core. functions. Documenting them however is a big deal. We mostly need documentation for enlisting more users. After that, we need a good beginner user interface that doesn't kill any GUI or command-line functions that are currently customizable . I think it would help a lot if the scheme or c code underlying functions showed in the log window in a way that can be cut and pasted to execute it again, or create a script that can be run with a button. IOW, for PCB, I'd like to see all the actions commands to get the same effect as the GUI mouse and keyboard commands listed in a command log window as they happen so they could be cut and pasted to redo. Having exact command logs would help proficient users document actions easily and write them up as tutorials, videos, style references. John ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
