On 1/17/2018 3:39 AM, Chris Pavlina wrote: > On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 07:55:02AM +0000, Matthijs Kooijman wrote: >> Hi Wayne, >> >>> KiCad should not be determining which libraries get loaded just because >>> our library layout gets more complex. I would reject any design changed >>> that loaded libraries outside the users control. Maybe I'm misreading >>> this but it kind of sounds like that to me. >> My proposal would indeed be to load libraries, without the user >> configuring each individual library. However, the user would configure >> the entire thing (e.g. "load *all* libraries from the default >> distribution") and can disable the entire thing (and load libraries >> individually) if he wants more control. >> >> As a user, that is exactly the amount of control I want. I don't realy >> care about which official libraries are in my library list exactly, I >> just want all of them so I have the broadest choice in components and >> footprints. >> >> Additionally, I don't really want to think about this when upgrading. If >> I upgrade the libraries package, I really want to still be able to just >> use all official libraries, without having to check after each upgrade >> if there is perhaps a new .lib file that was not there before (which, I >> think, involves removing them all and re-adding them as the easiest way >> to do that). Currently, if some symbols are split off into a new >> library, and I forget to check this, they will silently disappear from >> my choice of symbols, and I might not even realize this (and simply >> assume a symbol I am looking for does not exist yet). >> >> Even if I wanted to go through the trouble of checking the library list >> on upgrades, I might not always actually realise that I've upgraded when >> using distribution packages that get upgraded as part of a bigger >> upgrade. >> >> What I write here is how *I* would like to see things as a user. I can >> imagine this applies to more, if not most, users as well. > > As a user, 10000% agree.
Me too! If users want to constantly update their libraries, that's their choice but kicad installers should not be forcing this on users. We should have a fixed set of libraries that are tagged for a release series so users have consistent libraries to work with until the next stable release. I wouldn't be very happy if my libraries were completely changed when I updated to a new point release of KiCad. Users in corporate environments tend to value stability more than having the latest libraries. > >> >> >> One additional caveat I recently realized: Even if you would >> automaticlaly update the list of libraries, you will additionally need >> to rename/remap some symbols, since symbol references include the >> library name in v5. One way I can imagine this works is to also include >> a "rename" specification (perhaps similar to the current rename.json), >> which can be used by KiCad to automatically migrate older symbol >> references. Or perhaps the rescue dialog can be improved to look among >> other libraries for a symbol with the same name and let the user choose >> between relinking to such a symbol, or resueing one from the cache. >> >> Gr. >> >> Matthijs > > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
