On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 12:27:56AM -0500, Bill Wilson wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:11:58 -0500
> David Carr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > As I've been learning Pcb, I've noticed that many of the keymappings in
> > the GTK version are not the same as what is mentioned in the manual,
> > quick reference, etc. Is there a source file or something I could read
> > them out of? Or have they not been implemented yet? Either way, I'd
> > like to see what I could do to improve the situation.
>
> There was also not quick reference and manual agreement with the Xaw
> pcb, and the Gtk key mappings are supposed to be the same as what you
> got with the Xaw pcb out of the box. I think the Xaw default key mappings
> evolved and the manual and quick reference were not kept up
> to date and perhaps those should be updated? I was trying to make
> the Gtk version behave exactly like the Xaw version, so if a key mapping
> is not the same as the default Xaw key mapping it is a bug. Of course
> I'm assuming the key mappings in the Xaw pcb source code reflected the
> latest intentions and it's the documentation that is out of date...
Xaw and Gtk key mappeings are generally the same in my experience
(I just sent 2 4 layer PCB boards made with Gtk PCB to manufacturing)
except for F10 that gives you the menu instaed of selecting the thermal
tool, but this might be a hard to override Gtk bug/feature.
Now coming back to the thermal tool, I do microwave and/or very high
frequency boards, sometimes using coplanar waveguides with ground
plane. What would be very ueful for me is that the thermal tool
actually selects among 3 states for vias:
1) no thermal
2) thermal relief with spokes as now
3) flushed (no spokes), no negative drawing, just a hole in
the center of a round pad (the pad is ctually not even necessary
but will show up in the drawing if you try to put the via too
close to the edge of the polygon, so it not completely useless
as a visual clue). In some sense it would be the equivalent of a
plated mounting hole.
I believe that this would not be very hard to implement now that
the file format uses ASCII strings instead of hexadecimal values
for the flags. But I have only sent trivial patches to PCB (fixing
some Gerber output bugs for examples) so I might be completely wrong.
Question: if I write a patch to implement this feature during the
2 weeks of holidays iI'm going to take in July, does it stand any
chance of being accepted?
While I am at it, another feature request. The layout name
may take a lot of space in the menubar. Why not move it to the
window's titelbar? I might also write the patch if other people
think that it is a good idea, but I've always had a large
impedance mismatch with Gtk, so buyers beware.
Regards,
Gabriel
