kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/10/2012 01:47 AM, jean-pierre charras wrote:
> Le 10/05/2012 08:15, Lorenzo Marcantonio a écrit :
>> On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 10:26:21PM -0500, Moses McKnight wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> There are a few quirks with preferences in Kicad it seems.  I'm
>>> running Kicad on Ubuntu 12.04 from Adam's PPA.
>>>
>>> 1. The first is that the preferences file for eeschema has changed
>>> recently from .eeschema to .EESchema - is this intentional?
>> Noticed that too. Also the mixed case is not 'traditional' for dot
>> files.
> I committed a fix.
> Config files capitalization were broken by bzr rev 3544 (and not 3543 as said in my commit message).
> Should now be .eeschema
>
>>> 2. When I change the grid size it always goes back to 50 mils after
>>> I restart eeschema.  Shouldn't there be a way to save that?  I think
>>> it used to.
>> Uhmm... for pcbnew it should save. Never changed eeschema grid, so
>> I can't say
> Pcbnew has no "normal" grid and display the grid size.
> But unlike Pcbnew, in Eeschema:
> - The 50 mils grid is the "normal" grid size to put components and wires.
> - The Grid size is not displayed.
> So the other grid sizes should be rarely used,
> and it is better to start Eeschema with the "normal" grid to avoid mistakes.

To add emphasis to this important point, new Eeschema designs have even the "engineering
unit of measure" being the standard distance between two pins.

However, it is an elastic distance, based on current zoom, somewhat like SVG:


https://blueprints.launchpad.net/kicad/+spec/sweet-coords



>
>
>>> 3. It seems to me it would make a lot more sense to put the library
>>> search paths in the .eeschema preferences file than in the project
>>> file.  Do people actually use different paths for library files for
>>> projects on the same computer?  For my projects the search paths
>> Yes, especially with PCB modules. So you can have a library dir with
>> 8 mil tech and another one with 6 mil tech.


With work I am doing in SWEET down in /new directory, you can have library *definitions*
in a number of places.  Note that a definition is not a library itself, a definition is a
row in a "library table", and library tables replace the concept of search paths
entirely.  They map a logical library name onto a physical location semi-permanently. 


The places that you can put library tables include:

in your schematic, in your project, in your personal preferences, and out on the
Internet.  Having a library definition out on the Internet tells Eeschema where to go look
for any Eeschema library on the www.

The sequence of places listed above, lets you override a logical library definition with a
more powerful or trumping specification, most local first.  So any logical library
definition present in a library table in the schematic itself trumps all others having the
same logical library name.

This makes it possible for somebody to send you a schematic, he puts is library out on the
internet, and as long as his schematic's resident "library table" points to his internet
library, (he does not have have to send you the library) the schematic simply loads into
Eeschema and works fine.


In order to support PCBNEW plugins seemlessly, we probably have to introduce a library
table there also.  So PCBNEW can choose the correct footprint file format automatically.



>>
> Yes also for me.
>
>