kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 12 May 2010, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:

> Creating a summarizing, concise statement of what the problem is would be 
> good, and should be the next thing we do.  I think it should be easy to think 
> of some possible solution ideas / alternatives, once the problem is fully 
> defined.  Then somebody needs to volunteer to code it.  I would consider 
> volunteering for it, depending on what we come up with.

Well, what you're asking is reasonable after all :P

The problem is from following the following workflow, which is the
recommended one in the docs, btw:

1) Create a master source board file and populate it with modules;

2) Use it to create a library with the 'Archive modules' file command.

It is interesting that I never used any of the 'library' commands in the
module editor, since I'm supposed to edit the master source board,
right?

OK. Now for the use case:

1) I create a new module in the master board, and call it WRONG-NAME;

2) For whatever reason I decide that this name is wrong, I want to call
him RIGHT-NAME;

3) Intuitively, since there is no footprint name around, I change his
reference (edit module or edit field); it's wrong but it's the only
thing that make sense now :P

4) Create the library with the 'archive modules' command

==> I have a library with a 'WRONG-NAME' module using a 'RIGHT-NAME'
default reference :(

That's the problem statement... how we can solve it?

- A read only box showing the footprint name is cheap and useful for
  a number of reason, anyway, so I'd put it in right now;

The IMHO easiest way is to put in the module properties in the module
editor a way to rename it... since as you said all the module data is
copied back and forth between the board and the module editor, you
change the footprint name in the module editor, click 'update module in
board' and the new footprint name would be transferred to the master
copy, right?

But then why not make the footprint name an editable field in the module
property in the board editor itself? The 'change module' button does in
fact do something very similar, I reckon... after all the footprint name
isn't used for anything else since there is no shared data between
modules...


--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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