gEDA: automatic netnames in gschem

[Dan McMahill]

I've been thinking about issues around cross probing (select a component 
or net in the schematic and have it select the component or net in pcb) 
and plotting simulation results (select a net and hit plot) in gschem. 
It seems one of the issues to solve is that the nets which are not 
explicitly named do not get a name until netlist time.  This means 
gschem doesn't know the names of these nets and therefore can't really 
plot node voltages or tell pcb to select/hilight a net.

Anyone have any thoughts about how this could be addressed?  At least 
one commercial tool has a 'check and save' button/menu choice/hotkey 
which extracts connectivity for the schematic and assigns net names to 
all nets which haven't been explicitly named.  When you netlist (for 
layout or simulation), these net names are used.

What would people think of such a feature?  Basically there would be an 
operation which names all unnamed nets in gschem but sets some attribute 
which says "this is a system named net and subject to being renamed next 
time connectivity is extracted".

-Dan