On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:51:13 -0700, John Doty wrote:
> The simplest things (page->ps and page->png) are supported well.
Options are not remembered across sessions. There is no way to render
colored postscript. Font size in postscript output does not match the
font in the GUI. PNG output is restricted to a small set of resolutions.
Lines are strictly one pixel wide even at resolutions that render multi
pixel in the GUI. This leads to all kinds of artifacts representations
when rendered at anything but the "natural" resolution.
I'd call print support "basic" at best, but not "well".
>> Even the
>> most common tasks like PDF output of the current schematic need non-
>> trivial customization. See the wiki faq on this.
>
> What makes you think somebody else's GUI will do what *you* want here?
What makes you think, the desire for PDF output is specific to me?
> I am absolutely certain that any GUI driven work-flow will be wrong for
> most of my (multiple, disparate) purposes.
^^
Like it or not, there are other people to whom the absence of a GUI work-
flow is a complete show-stopper. As it happens, some of my customers are
members of this group. As a consequence, I am forced to do eagle when
working with/for them :-|
>> Let the user decide which pages to print and create a customized print-
>> config file from the input of the user.
>
> What if you want to include things other than schematics in the
> document?
Simple: The batch config creation dialog contains a button "Add other
document".
> GUI-generated scripts tend to be pretty inflexible.
So what? Your freedom to write a script from scratch is not affected in
any way by the GUI generated script. Please don't discourage efforts to
improve other work-flows than the ones you prefer.
> A computer is best used to *automate* your work,
Sure. And applications should free me from the need to reinvent the
wheel. Common tasks like "print all pages of a hierarchy" should not
require any programming skill at all.
> GUI tends to get in the way of automation, especially in cases where
> different users (or even a single user like me wearing different hats)
> have very different needs.
Again, please accept other peoples needs. A GUI driven work-flow is by no
means exotic but a legitimate preference. There is a reason why some
major commercial ECAD applications like protel are GUI-only. Since altium
charges big money, they better listen to their customers needs.
That said, I prefer to use tools, that allow for some kind of scripting.
Well designed applications should be capable to do both, GUI and
scripting. Come to think of it, neither schematic capture nor layout
design with pcb can be done with scripts. Thus, the algorithmic work-flow
fails due to lack of infrastructure.
---<(kaimartin)>---
--
Kai-Martin Knaak
http://lilalaser.de/blog
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