I think it would make the most sense to do option (a), possibly also leaving open the possibility of changing the updates source location (for example, it's conceivable to have a mirror server at kicad-pcb.org that contains snapshots of the libraries that are compiled from the Git repo whenever it's updated using a Jenkins job).
-Jon On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 9:21 PM, Oliver Walters < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Ok, now that the website integration with the libraries is (pretty much) > done, and the licensing issue seems to be sorted, there is one final puzzle > piece to solve before I'm happy with the state of the libraries for a v5 > release. > > *Goal: *Merge all footprint library repositories into a single repo to > solve the ongoing dramas of maintaining 100+ repos. > > *Problem*: The *only* thing standing in the way of just doing this is > that some users like the GitHub plugin and previous instruction is that > this functionality cannot be removed. > > The GitHub plugin functions by downloading a .zip file of a .pretty repo. > If we merge all footprint libs into a single repo with multiple > subdirectories, this will not work anymore (as GitHub dosen't allow you to > download a .zip of a single subdirectory). > > Merging the repos is the *right thing to do*. But how to proceed? > > *Options:* > > *a) Drop github plugin feature, replace with library-download tool* > > I don't think it is a good idea to live-load library data from GitHub (a > lot of other users agree too). It's slow, and a waste of bandwidth to > re-download the libs all the time. > > We drop support for loading libraries direct from GitHub. However, we add > a tool for downloading libraries from GitHub and storing to disk. Users can > update as they like. This can be integrated in KiCad and new users can run > this tool when they first install KICad. This means that no libs need to > distributed with the installer and users can update to latest libs whenever > they want. > > *b) Improve github plugin to allow subdirectory traversal* > > This is difficult and will only result in the plugin being slower. There > are two ways I can see to do this: > > i. Use Git API - tools exist that use this functionality - > https://github.com/KinoLien/gitzip > ii. Use subversion - GitHub actually provides subversion API - > https://www.seanw.org/blog/download-git-repo-subdirectory/ > > > *Subversion* > > In either case, I think that using the subversion tool to partially > download the libraries would be a good approach (I assume quicker than > using wget and the GitHub API). > > 1. Does anyone have any experience using the C API for SVN? > 2. The Python bindings are pretty good - https://pypi.python.org/pypi/svn > - and much easier to use. However, can we make the library download tools > dependent on enabling the python plugin? > 3. Is there a way to checkout a subversion remote to memory (to replicate > the functionality of the current GitHub plugin)? If not, I'm not sure how > to approach option b) above. > > > Feedback appreciated. I think that it is very important especially for new > users that this is improved. The GitHub plugin is constantly causing > headaches! > > Cheers, > Oliver > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > >
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