kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It took long than I anticipated (doesn't always?) but I just committed
the code to allow saving board files to the new s-expression based file
format.  I would like as many folks as possible to save their favorite
board file using File->Save As to the new format and take a look at the
result.  My goal is to get the final file format nailed down as quickly
as possible.  There are few caveats:

* I still have to convert angles to degrees from the current tenths of
degrees so please ignore the fact that 270° is saved as 2700°.  This fix
is coming soon.

* The lead developers have decided to drop support for the old segment
filled zones (SEGZONES) which have not been used in quite some time.  I
will be adding a dialog warning the user that they will need to refill
their zones using the current polygon filling.  I doubt this will effect
very many users but I could be wrong.

* I rearranged the object ordering slightly compared to the current file
format.  I moved the graphic items (items with no net connection) before
the modules.  This way all of the net connectable objects (modules,
traces, zones, etc.) will be grouped together.

Please take some time to look over the new format.  If you find a token
(key word) that is not clear, let me know so we can choose names that
are as human readable as possible.  Please keep in mind that the file
size is going to increase dramatically over the current format so try to
keep names as brief as possible while still maintaining readability.
Also, if you find any indentation or other formatting errors, let me
know so I can fix it.  I will be working on reading the new file format
over the next few days (weeks?) so I would like to wrap up the file
format definition in a reasonable amount of time.  Thanks in advance for
you help.

Wayne