kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/01/2012 04:35 PM, Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo wrote:
>
>
> 2012/5/1 Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>>
>
>     On 05/01/2012 10:02 AM, Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo wrote:
>     > We can read and write libraries now with the latest extensions to PLUGIN that Dick &
>     > Wayne did :)
>     > now it always use legacy, but they will work with all formats. :-)
>     >
>     > [...]
>
>
>     Only 7 lines of code which show how powerful the scripting support is becoming.
>
>     Thank you very much Miguel.  I look forward to playing with it, some day when I have
>     more
>     time.
>
>
> You're welcome Dick , I think we all are putting a lot of effort to make next KiCad's
> release something
> awesome.
>
> I'm using the new library functionality to make some nice little footprint wizard
> examples, and I'm thinking about
> how to build a simple architecture to let people "plug in" new footprint wizard scripts.


Miguel,

Your enthusiasm for the project has become an important asset of the project in and of
itself.  I personally appreciate all that you do.


With the introduction of some sensible "software interfaces" we are now starting to see
some benefits.  The original idea for the BOARD plugin framework should be credited to Tom
and Javier of CERN.  From that I was able to actually design something workable.  As
simple as possible, but not simpler. 

Wayne has been faithful to that software API contract, and is in the midst of writing one
of the most important classes ever contributed to KiCad.  We're calling it PCB_IO.  This
class is a normal PLUGIN for our new native s-expression support in mm, but has special
bells and whistles on it for clipboard text generation and parsing.  This work is being
funded by CERN, so we owe them a special thanks.  (Some selling took place to get this
funding, and I will claim some responsibility there.  Selling is not foreign to me.)


On my todo list is an EAGLE plugin.  (My todo list is like a personal wish list.  Wishes
only come true based on available time, energy and mood.)


Now imagine that you, Miguel, write a world class footprint wizard, or a framework that
lets others do their little twist to it.  Maybe as you say, it is a housing for any number
of footprint wizards, each with a particular specialization.  Then, with this design in
place, imagine being able to generate eagle footprints or kicad footprints, without any
change to your code, or to the code within the wizards.  It is not inconceivable that
eagle users will come just to use the footprint wizards.


Another benefit of this PLUGIN API design, is that we are positioned to climb to a
superset position in both BOARD and in MODULE.  This is because the API is based on those
objects, and as we write additional plugins, it is not inconceivable that we may chose to
add features to our core C++ objects in order to handle them some other format.  This
means we are positioned to assimilate and extend as needed.

So yes, there is a hell of a lot going on here.  And there are a lot of people contributing.


Dick