kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@...>]

2009/11/5 Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>:
> Mateusz wrote:
>>> These discussions usually lead nowhere until you have a qualified
>>> developer in hand with about a man-month to actually do the coding.
>>>
>>>
>>> I would start there.  Only then does finalizing a design make most
>>> sense.  Otherwise it will end up being a wish list that gets forgotten
>>> in 30 days.
>>>
>>> I don't think we want to make this email list into a "wishlist graveyard".
>>>
>>> So recruit first, then design, then code.  That is my suggestion.
>>>
>>>
>>> Dick
>>>
>>
>> I think you are right! The list is a big "wishlist graveyard".
>>
>> The thing is some things can be done in many different way and
>> we waste a lot of time just discussing them. At the end it is really
>> hard to collect some people to actually do it.
>>
>> As you said, the best way to solve this problem will be to create a "taskforce".
>> Group of people capable to do at least 7 hours of coding per week under the supervision of a leader (someone with a lot of experience and access tosvn). Leader should moderate the discussion and make the plan, then he should check the work of others and commit it to svn.
>>
>> So is there anyone from experienced kicad developers who would like to lead the group named "web based repository"?
>>
>> Are there any developers (with enough free time) willing to help him?
>>
>> If not, then there is no point in discussing it at all!
>>
>
>
> I am interested in this subject and already have enough ideas in my head
> to complete a full design and an implementation.    My design uses a
> formalized API within a plug-in architecture, so it would inherently
> support more than one implementation where each was housed in a separate
> DLL/so.  The key is get the API correct.
>
>
> Sometime in the next week or so I will put some thoughts onto this list
> about it.
>
>
> In the mean time, it would be helpful for us to put on our user's hats
> and try and agree on what is wrong with Kicad part management from a
> user perspective.  If we cannot agree on what is wrong as users, we will
> never agree on what a fix looks like.
>
>
> So what is wrong *from a user perspective* ?

I only have a few of things that I think are weak points at the moment:

(1) The value field is in fact the schematic symbol name. For a
resistor or capacitor this makes no sense to me. The value of a
component is something different to the schematic symbol name in a
library. If others concurred then maybe this is a very easy fix.

(2) The Field1...Fieldn fields are very useful, but also limiting
because it is easy to forget what each field should be used for. It
would be very useful to be able to set up a static set of field names
so that I do not have to type in the field name every time I make a
new component.

(3) The pin editing options are/were confusing. I see Wayne has just
committed a patch to tidy up the pin dialog so perhaps this is now
easier to understand. The "Edit pins per part" toggle button is the
confusing bit for me. I expect when I select a pin's properties to be
able to set all of its properties, including whether it is shared
among all component parts or exclusive to the visible part. This has
caused a lot of confusion for me before.

Other than that I don't really have any other comment as I've never
used the standard libraries, I've only created new libraries from
scratch. I'm still a very satisfied user :)

Best Regards,

Brian.