kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04/04/2011 10:40 AM, Chris Giorgi wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 06:59, Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> -snip-
>> If anything looks long winded (overly verbose), the next couple of weeks
>> would be a good time to make those 11th hour changes.
>>
>> 'line_width' as a keyword name, seems a bit long to me, but its a minor deal.
>>
>> Overall, hopefully it still looks sweet.
>
> Hi Dick,
> The grammar is looking great! I have a few suggestions regarding line
> styling, including obviating the line_width keyword: Create a 'stroke'
> property for the stroke of a figure, and within 'stroke' define a
> 'weight' attribute to replace the 'line_width' property. The 'stroke'
> property could also include a 'style' attribute , allowing for dashed
> lines, and perhaps even an 'endpoint' attribute, allowing for arrow
> heads and tails. This would be consistent with most vector graphics
> packages, and I would consider it highly desirable functionality in
> some circumstances.
>
> (rectangle (start -5 -14) (end 5 14) (stroke (weight 1.2) (style
> (dashed 0.5 0.1)) (fill none))
>
> Draw an unfilled rectangle from (-5,-14) to (5,14) using a pen weight
> of 1.2, with dashes 0.5 long with 0.1 spaces between each dash.
>
>
> (line (start 1 3) (end 2 5) (stroke (weight 1.0) (style solid)
> (endpoint tail head)))
>
> Draw a solid line segment from (1,3) to (2,5) using a pen weight of
> 1.2. Decorate the start with a standard tail shape and the end with a
> standard head shape.
>
> A few open questions:
> One issue that I'm unclear about is what the units for the
> 'line_width' were, and what they should be for 'stroke(weight)'.


(line_width WIDTH) has WIDTH as a "percent of a logical unit".

So 1.5 would be 1.5 percent of a logical unit, or .015 logical units.
A logical unit is defined as the standard distance between two neighboring
schematic pins, a dimensionless number.  See the *.odt file in /new for more
info.

This grammar is specific to schematic parts.  I won't talk about eventual
PCBNEW requirements at this time.

My concern about line_width was lack of brevity, so now instead of

(line_width 1.2) we now have

(stroke (weight 1.2) (style (dashed 0.5 0.1))


We are going in the wrong direction regarding brevity  :)

Maybe we can have defaults, and get rid of the weight wrapper:


(stroke 1.2) which is now shorter than:
(line_width 1.2)

This is an improvement that gives us a container element in which to add in
the fancy lines when not using default solid line:

(stroke 1.2 (style (dashed 0.5 0.1))



> Another question is should the 'fill' of a polygon outline in fact be
> transparent, or should it be nonexistent? Should transparency be an
> alpha channel so we can stack things, and if so, how is the stacking
> order determined? What does it mean for text to have the '(fill
> filled)' attribute? Would you be adverse to allowing for non-solid
> fills, perhaps hatching similar to that in AutoCAD?

Wayne or others can comment on the other suggestions.  I don't see us
stacking things in a 2D schematic editor.

I would not be opposed to showing it in 3D however, so long as we can see
each side of the cylindrical wires.
I'll bring the wire nuts.


>  Looks SWEET so far!

Thanks.

Dick

> Take care,
>   ~~~Chris Giorgi~~~
>