At 10:04 AM 3/12/2002 +0100, Edi Im Hof wrote: >Have you also tried to "Update Footprint from Library"? It didn't work >with spaces in the name.
Frankly, I consider the *recognition* of spaces in a footprint name to be a sort of bug or inferior operation. I have somewhat grudgingly accepted spaces in filenames; it is convenient when Word creates a filename with the first few words of a document, but I see no good place for this in naming footprints. Ditto lower case letters. If my engineer tells me to use a footprint, I don't want to worry about whether or not the next word is part of the footprint name.... Where I would be tempted to use a space, I used an underscore or hyphen. We don't need spaces in names, so I'm sorry that Protel recognizes them at all, and I am not surprised to find that some routines might fail if there are spaces in the name. Here is what I would suggest to Protel: remove any complete recognition of spaces from filenames. When a file is loaded which contains spaces in the name, replace them with an underscore. If a part is not found with the underscore name, search for one with a space or with spaces where the underscore or underscores exist (i.e., consider them equivalent). If a library part is found to contain a space, query the user to allow the program to replace it with an underscore. (This would allow users who have used spaces to convert to underscores more or less painlessly.) If a user has used space vs. underscore to discriminate between two parts in the enabled libraries, the same process should be followed that we wish Protel followed with respect to any name duplications: the user should be queried instead of automatically loading the first name. This, however, should be a configurable option *if* Protel allows us to easily give libraries priority. [Right now, a requested footprint which exists in more than one library (i.e., it has the same name, it is not necessarily the same footprint) is taken from the first library in the list. This is often not what we would desire. Typically, where a part is in the default Protel library and we have edited the part to improve it, from our point of view, we would want to use our part, not Protel's part. Or we might have reflow parts and wave solder parts, and we might want to choose them differently for a board, but still use a part from the "other" library if it does not exist in the library for the technology being used. By the way, OrCAD Layout's technology files were a good idea.... Just because I think that using Layout is roughly equivalent to diving into a swimming pool with no water in it doesn't mean that they did nothing right. Having optional setups (Rules, libraries) for various common kinds of board designs and production levels would be quite useful, and we could make our own as well. Yeah, we can do this now by making empty board files, but better files could come with the installation, including files for common controlled impedance design configurations, etc. When libraries are enabled, they are sorted in ASCII order in the library list. This was an error. At the worst, they should have been listed in the order they were enabled; this would have given us a measure of control better than what we have now, which is to rename the libraries or give them prefixes to control priority. At best we should be able to directly edit the order. Eudora has a nice way of allowing filters to be prioritized. One picks up a filter name in the list (left-click-hold) and can then move it up or down; the cursor becomes a line showing where the filter will be inserted; this is much better than a highlight which always raises the question of whether the object would be moved to the space *before* or *after* the highlight.] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
