kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@...>]

Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> yajeed2000 wrote:
>> --- In kicad-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Vesa Solonen <vsolonen@...> wrote:
>> 
>>> Could it be a good behavior to remove 'connection bubble' from a pin
>>> 
>> when 
>> 
>>> it gets connected? That would allow easy checking for unconnected,
>>> 
>> verify 
>> 
>>> a connect and also simplify detail on screen. Can you Jean-Pierre
>>> 
>> give any 
>> 
>>> advice where to look for that code as I'd like to get that done here 
>>> locally. If the feature is seen as benefit for others and it's 
>>> implementation fits your schedule that would be even better.
>>>
>>> -Vesa
>>>
>>> 
>> Hi,
>> It would also be nice if some kind of logic was included for
>> highlighting connected nets in EESchema. Maybe this could be linked to
>> the connection bubble turning off. The highlighting of connected nets
>> would also help in the understanding of how hierarchical connections work.
>>
>> David.
>>
>> 
> David,
> 
> Like a popup list box (in a small modeless dialog) which lists the nets 
> by "net name" , and with a checkbox to the left of each net name. If 
> the check box is selected, then those nets (and attached pins) are 
> highlighted. If several nets can be highlighted, then one net can be 
> highlight as a simpler case. Then with this feature, maybe indeed the 
> missing bubble is not needed. I don't know that bubbles are a universal 
> feature of all pin types, are they?

Power pins don't have the connection bubble so you wouldn't get any
indication for power and ground components. Doesn't running the DRC
highlight unconnected nets? Rather than a popup dialog, a more flexible
solution might be a docking panel (like wxAUI) that displays a tree view
of all the drawing objects. You could expand the drawing object and
view all or some of its parameters. If you really wanted to be clever,
you could allow users to modify the editable parameters in the tree
control. This way you wouldn't have to open an individual dialog box to
edit the parameters for each drawing object. The benefit of the wxAUI
type design is that you can undock the panel from the main window
effectively making it like a modeless dialog or turn if off when it
takes up too much of the drawing area. It's just something to think
about for some future improvements. In the short term, you could
provide net connection information in the message panel. When you
select a component by left clicking, some of the parameter information
about the component is displayed in the message panel. Something
similar could be done for wire and bus nets by displaying the net name
an all of the connection points. You also could display the same
information in a tool tip when the cursor hovers over the net. I
generally like to avoid dialog boxes (even modeless ones) unless the
application cannot continue without some user input. I just wanted to
throw out some other ideas for consideration.

Wayne

> 
> With this design the list of points that Jean-Pierre suggested would not 
> be needed. Rather, at some point in the drawing process the net list 
> would need to be consulted instead of the list of points. And the 
> netlist itself would have to have hold the highlight flag, since several 
> could be enabled.
> 
> Dick