kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 15 May 2012 08:19, Edwin van den Oetelaar
<oetelaar.automatisering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 9:05 AM, Edwin van den Oetelaar
> <oetelaar.automatisering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:17 AM, Brian Sidebotham
>> <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Guys,
>>>
>>> I was recently thinking it would be cool to implement a templating
>>> system for KiCad projects. This means including more than just a
>>> project file as the basis of a new project.
>>>
>>> Particularly for people doing Arduino projects and the like, it would
>>> be very handy to be able to select a template when starting a new
>>> project as a kickstart. The template would be able to consist of any
>>> file type, so could include various schematic files, and a board file.
>>> To make it universal, I think it would be good to include several
>>> templates with the KiCad install, but also have a search path (or
>>> environmental variable pointing to a path) for user templates.
>>>
>>> I see a template as a simple directory of files. It need not be any
>>> more complicated than that. It would be easy to implement, and if the
>>> default project (which now only consists of a project file) were to
>>> also include a schematic and board file, then any issue of a modal nag
>>> box would be eradicated anyway.
>>>
>>> It should be a simple directory wildcard copy and rename. All we would
>>> need to do is define a template structure which could consist of a
>>> simple text file to provide a description of the template, perhaps
>>> possibly with a few images. These description and image files would
>>> not need to be copied to the new project directory so there would need
>>> to be a defined structure and/or naming convention for the template
>>> files.
>>>
>>> Does this sound like a valid proposal? I'd like to add this to the
>>> project, so if it feels like a good direction to move in, we can
>>> hammer out the details for a templating system.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>>
>>> Brian.
>>
>>
>>
>> To me it sounds like a "create project (from template)" wizard, that could
>> be created using the new scripting interface.
>> I would not suggest implementing using scripts instead of file-copies.
>
>
> I mean I would suggest using scripts instead of just file copies. (invert my
> statement)
>
>>
>> You could also do stuff like :
>> Create new project -> select/define board size (eg euro card/arduino
>> board/your standard) -> select /define mounting holes -> select/define
>> default width/spacing of tracks (technology)
>> And an option like : take these parameters from existing project...
>> Just a thought,
>> Edwin

Hi Edwin,

I don't really want to create a project wizard - that is not what I'm
proposing. Though a wizard could be added in the future for some
advanced functionality I would rather implement a simple templating
system for KiCad which is simply file based.

It is ultimately flexible then for anyone who wants to quickly start a
specific type of project - it's very useful for starting prototyping
projects quickly which have a common starting point.

Best Regards,

Brian.