kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 06/14/2010 12:05 PM, Werner Almesberger wrote:
> Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
>   
>> You have good reading comprehension.
>>     
> Heh, thanks :-)
>
>   
>> "template" aka "wanted", not "wanted" aka "template".  The distinction
>> is important since I have started coding it, and the source reflects the
>> latter term.
>>     
> Good. I like "template" much better than "wanted" as well.
>
>   
>> the user never sees this F4, F5, .. stuff.
>>     
> Even in the absence of any templates ?  

"F4" as a field reference nomenclature exists on disk, no where else.  This is tantamount to fields[4] in the symbol.  The F<n> nomenclature is only known to you if you use a text editor on a SCH or LIB file, and might not survive a file format design change in the long term future.


> I guess what I'm not quite certain about yet is whether you're
> completely getting rid of positional fields (except FP, value,
> etc.), or whether the template/user-defined fields still have an
> Fn "slot" associated with them.
>   

Neither the SCH file nor the LIB file format are changing as part of my
current work.

> For example, if you send me a symbol that contains one (and only
> one) template field, and this field shows up as F6 = Manufacturer
> on your system, would it also show up as F6 = Manufacturer on mine,
> or could it show up in any of the F4/F5/... slots, depending on
> what other templates live in my global configuration ?
>   

It arrives to you with a "user defined" fieldname, and the spelling of
the fieldname is different from the default fieldname, and its position
will be F4 or higher.  It arrives in the same slot and is shown in the
same slot as it did on my system.  You may have to buy that symbol :)

Your template fieldnames, none of which probably exist in the symbol
when you receive it, will be pushed down however when the symbol
property editor comes up.  Unless you put in a non-blank value and save,
none of your template fieldnames will ever go into the symbol as a user
defined fieldname.

I don't think it is possible to serve every master.  Sometimes serving
one master excludes serving another.  Lower on the priority list is to
preserve the order of user defined fieldnames within a symbol.  A proper
lookup function can hide an out of order situation within the BOM
generator.   So if you provide a value for your 2nd template fieldname,
save, only then will the second template fieldname go into the symbol as
a user defined fieldname.   Whether that goes into F5 is not assured. 
What is assured is that when you re-enter the property editor, you will
only be shown one fieldname of that spelling and it should have the
value you entered before.

Dick


> Thanks a lot for explaining the rest !
>
> - Werner
>
>