I think it is funny that fork is taken negatively. It is actually a compliment. A fork says, your code is so far along and so good that rather then rewrite it I am going to use it as my base. Then people like Bob and Tim add, by the way, when it is realistic I well generate patch files to submite my changes back into the code base.
I do the samething for gschem. I modify gaf to have "better" hierarchical bus capabilities. And I inform the main developers of what I am doing and occasionally give them a chance to abuse my code. So, have at it Bob. After all this is what Open Source is all about. Steve Meier Bob Paddock wrote: >I have mentioned wxPCB here a few times, so I thought I'd spell out my >goals so it does not seem like the TCL fork that seems to have taken many by >surprise. > >Has DJ has mentioned he is working on separating the GUI from the logic >of PCB, with the goal being able to use different GUI's. > >My GUI of choice is wxWidgets, http://www.wxwidgets.org/ , for two reasons. >One reason is that I use it regularly in my day job so I am familiar with it. > >The other reason for choosing wxWidgets is that it is cross platform >compatible. >To that end the main goal of wxPCB is to create a version of PCB that will run >natively >on Windows, without requiring X or anything else foreign to Windows. > >The cross platform compatibility lets me develop wxPCB on my home Linux box, >as well as >cross compile with Mingw32 for Windows. As an aside I have crossed compiled >Mingw Windows >code and run it under the WINE emulator. Doing this has an advantage that if >you have WINE >installed you can run wxPCB without getting into any kind of "dependency hell" >as we have >seen problems with here on the list. > >A secondary side of effect of using wxWidgets is that wxPCB should run on the >MAC and the >PocketPC. I don't have the hardware to test those, does anyone here? While >only a >masochist is going to do a PCB layout on a PocketPC, I see that platform >valuable for field >service work. Have you every needed to check a PCB layout while stuck in a >coal mine doing >field service work? I have, you don't want to do it. > >Here is my prioritized list of goals and status: > >* Use DoxyGen to document all code and manuals. http://www.doxygen.org/ >On Going. > >* Implement basic frame work. >Done. Since under Linux wxWidgets uses wxGTK >it looks a lot like the GTK port of PCB now. I did make one change in that >I made a pull-down-menu under the mode buttons to select the grid size, of >both Metric and Imperial units > >* Implement 'Help' sub-system code. >Done. > >* Implement the 'Help' text itself. >On going. >Need to find the most accuretet and uptodate PCB documentation. >Suggestions? > >* Implement load/save of keyboard bindings at run time. >In process. >http://wxcode.sourceforge.net/components/keybinder/ > >* Implement autoupdate to update wxPCB and support files >from wxPCB web site. >http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=510716 > >* Implement browsable footprint library based on thumbnails. >John Luciani has graccisuly allowed me to use his foot print library. >It is implemented within wxPCB as a virtual filesystem containted with a .ZIP >file. >This gets around cross platform issues with symbolic links. XP does have >symbolic links >called 'Junctions' but few know of them or use them. >Will have to create thumbnails of M4. Yuck. :-( > >* Implement Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10). >In the short term wxPCB uses the native wxWidgets GetText, in the very long >term >I want to move to ICU. > >The GNU GetText project deals with translation. >http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/ > >Use http://www.poedit.org/ to implement the catalogs. > >The IBM ICU project deals with everything. >http://www.ibm.com/software/globalization/icu/ > >* Implement a set of abstract classes to add script-interpreter support. >The implementation of these interfaces for the Lua, Python, UnderC and CINT >interpreters etc. >http://wxcode.sourceforge.net/components/wxscript/ > >* Designator renumbering and back-annotation to gschem files. > >* BOM generator. > >* Automatic creation of Web site ready output files. > >* Ability to run other gEDA programs such as gschem as transparently as >possible, >as not to confuse Windows people. [This one is at the bottom because there >is not a gschem for Windows yet, otherwise it would be higher on the list.] > >* Do something useful with http://www.wxpcb.com/ . > >
