On Sat, 2008-03-29 at 15:40 -0400, Stuart Brorson wrote: > > 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. :-(
Appologies if you've sent me details before, if so I've forgotten. If you could provide command line output from the crash, or symptoms, that would he helpful. The code does have a habit of hanging if the D-Bus methods don't return (either PCB or D-Bus not talking). This could be fixed by moving to asynchronous method calls, and handling timeouts better. My bad. > 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. I often use it (eat the dogfood) if I'm designing a board. It also helps when I have to demo it for students to use. > 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. I quite like the idea of being able to pick from my schematics in a project without having to sift through a dir full of output files, backup copies etc.. OTOH, I don't always use it, and haven't been doing so for my latest work. > 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. It doesn't look bad, we can't be complacent. gEDA can be "quirky" too ;) > 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. I'm happy that summarises the design goals, although of course xgsch2pcb was really only ever designed as a prototype for one workflow in a more generic system. Best wishes, -- 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-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
