kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Manveru <manveru@...>]

2009/2/23 Vesa Solonen <vsolonen@...>:
> On Mon, 23 Feb 2009, Manveru wrote:
[...]
>
>> Not all current symbols are fine, and lot of them have different
>> proportions.
>
> That was my main motivation to put some thought on this too. We need to
> organize the work somewhat to avoid duplicate work and to get good tools
> for work. Maybe we should set up a git tree for library work scratch pad?
> Or just a new directory to library svn?

For me it is obvious to have separate tree for library work. Well, it
is not enough in my opinion - we should have some web/wiki system, to
publish symbols for discrete elements (maybe others in future) on-line
for review, what is done and what not. Symbol and elements libraries
should be separate subproject.

I think here is a technical limitation of symbol editor currently
present in KiCad. SVG format is very nice (Inkscape is nice and
advanced open source editor for them), but it does not have
constraints for electrical/electronic symbols. As far as I remember
there are metadata possible, which would be used for marking pins, or
other characteristics of elements drawn in SVG format. Other idea is
to have separate named layers for different parts of the symbol
itself.

Other technical problem is how to move work from SVG into KiCad. I do
not think it is possible to support quite heavy format like SVG as
symbol container. I do not know how strong is wxWindows support for
SVG, and how heavy...

What else bothers me, is hierarchy of current elements in the KiCad
library. I had an idea once to suggest new project which creates
hierarchy for elements and new way of handling them in not only KiCad.
I would like to have separation between discrete elements like diodes,
resistors, etc. which have standardized graphic symbol on schematics
and between microchips. Additionally we should have elements like
holes, which do not need symbol on schematic (or may need, as I saw
schematics where holes were grounded). Typically microprocessors and
programmable arrays are very specific to its manufacturer, while there
is many other standardized chips like 74xxx. There should be a method
allowing to assign elements to second or even third category in
hierarchy. This would make searching of elements much easier.

I think your or others effort should start from preparing a document
about KiCad library style for all current and future participants.
This would be much help as when I made couple of elements to my
library, I do not know whether these conforms standard and it is worth
publication... and if it's worth, where to put it.

At this point I just think up that symbol/module editor should offer a
function "Submit to review by community...", which publish work of
user on a web page where I could be voted and commented, before it
would be committed to the official library.

Wow, I typed so many words - please excuse me. It had to be short
message, but when I start typing my ideas become more and more clear
to me. That is all for now :-)

-- 
Manveru
jabber: manveru@...
gg: 1624001
http://www.manveru.pl