Hi Dan,
[snip]
>So, how to proceed.... Some of the candidate options are:
>
>1) teach pcb-mode (what I'm calling the collection of routines which
>get loaded into gschem to make it interact specifically with pcb) how to
>read gsch2pcb project files and extend that file format to hold any
>extra information (if any) that might be needed by gschem. Has the
>advantage of being able to work with an existing gsch2pcb project file
>that someone may have.
The advantage of this is that there is no new file or file format
that user has to deal with.
>
>2) use a scheme style RC file like the rest of gschem/gnetlist/gattrib
>and teach gsch2pcb to read those instead
The advantage of this is that all the file formats look the same.
>
>3) #2 and have pcb-mode generate the gsch2pcb project file
>automatically when the user asks pcb-mode to run gsch2pcb
The disadvantage of this (and #1) is that if the gsch2pcb
format changes, this mode will have to be updated.
>
>4) #2 and have a gsch2pcb file which is maintained seperately. I
>dislike this enough that I probably won't do this one.
>
>
>I'm leaning towards #1 or #3. I'd like to avoid adding N file parsers
>for N different modes (I'm thinking gnucap-mode, cascade-mode, etc on
>down the road) which would suggest #3.
Tough call. I also like #1 or #3. #2 looks like a lot of work
and it'll potentially break all existing project files.
>
>If I end up with any variants of #2, is there an existing guile function
>that sets a RC value and later reads it? The things I saw in the
Nothing quite so generic exists currently in libgeda.
>system-*rc files seem to all directly call custom guile functions. In
>other words to add to the component library, you use
>
> (component-library "somepath")
>
>which is customized to that function instead of something like
>
> (append-rc-value 'component-library "somepath")
>
>where append-rc-value (which doesn't exist yet I think) could be a
>generic function. One of my rules with pcb-mode is anything pcb
I wouldn't be opposed to such an approach, but changing the
existing custom guile routines and supporting routines is quite a bit
of work.
Are you looking to set existing rc related variables or add
new ones? component-library isn't really an variable but rather a
function which sets internal values in library. Ideally this should
have been just a plain scheme variable rather than a custom function.
>specific goes in pcb.scm (a single scheme file) and anything which gets
>written in C and compiled into gschem must be generic and not pcb specific.
I agree with the last point. Please try to keep as little of the
mode specific code out of libgeda/gschem as possible.
Btw, this whole mode mechanism that you have been working on
is really cool. I can also see the many more modes being written down
the road.
-Ales
