> Just curious, but how many people use xgsch2pcb presently? I am interested > in hearing your reasons for either using it or not using it.
*Chuckle* It crashes whenever I try to use it. :-( I am not too unhappy about that, since xgsch2pcb is a work in progress, not a finished app. In any event, I'm a command line guy, so I probably wouldn't use it. However, I'm not the target user of xgsch2pcb. Rather, the target user is a total n00b, who is expecting a unified application which takes him from schematic through netlisting, simulation, waveform analysis, and layout inside of one unified GUI. That is, the target user is probably a beginning circuit designer who doesn't know much about unix. Indeed, that n00b may be more comfortable with Windoze than unix. This newbie user expects to type "geda" at the commandline and immediately be placed into a design environment which is logical, intuitive, easy to use, and makes it easy to use all the tools in gEDA (schematic capture, attribute management, various simulators, and board layout). If you want to have a concrete picture of the target user of xgsch2pcb, think about the students in a beginning EE class who have never touched a schematic capture tool. Actually, Kicad may be the logical tool for those users since it runs on both Windoze and Linux. However, I am under the impression that Kicad can be buggy and quirky. It is also limited in its power. In fairness, I haven't fiddled with it for a couple of years, so it may be better now. My vision is that gEDA remain a discrete set of tools which run from the command line. The tools themselves should aim to be best-in-class apps with no limitations to their design power. Power users will create their own workflows and tie the tools together using Makefiles, or (soon) using some sort of IPC like DBUS. At this level, we might make the tools interoperate better by defining common exchange formats like netlists (i.e. standardized file formats) or standardized DBUS messages. On top of that, the project manager (xgsch2pcb) would provide the new user a one-stop dashboard from which he can run all the tools. The project manager should enforce one or two basic design flows which a beginner might need, for example: gschem/gattrib -> gnetlist -> PCB -> gerbv gschem/gattrib -> gnetlist -g spice-sdb -> gnucap/ngspice -> gwave By enforce, I mean that the buttons for each program would be activated/greyed out depending upon what the user has already done, or which files he has already created. It might also include a decent help menu guiding the newbie through the design process (although this can come later). If the newbie pressed the PCB button before doing anything else, it might ask "You don't have a netlist yet, are you sure?", or something like that. The idea is that the interface should help guide the newbie through his first few designs by assisting him with a basic design flow, while he is still learning the concept of design flow, and learning how to do circuit designs. That's my vision of what xgsch2pcb is all about. Stuart _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
