kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 22 May 2012 11:26, Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 16 May 2012 10:50, Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Hi Guys,
>>
>> I've had a change to put a proposal of the functionality together
>> which I think covers most stuff. I've attached a txt file incase the
>> text below doesn't come out very well.
>>
>> I think the functionality will be great for a lot of users of KiCad.
>> Let me know if I should convert this to a blueprint on Launchpad.
>>
>>    Proposal
>>    --------
>>
>>    To add new project template functionality to KiCad to facilitate the easy
>>    setup of projects which have common attributes such as pre-defined board
>>    outlines, connector posisitions, schematic elements, design rules, etc.
>>
>>
>>    Definitions
>>    -----------
>>
>>    A template is a directory of files, which includes a directory of metadata.
>>    The template system name (SYSNAME) is the directory name under which the
>>    template files are stored. The metadata directory (METADIR) contains
>>    pre-defined files which provide information about the template.
>>
>>    All files and directories in a template are copied to the new project path
>>    when a project is created using a template, except METADIR.
>>
>>    All files and directories which start with SYSNAME will have SYSNAME
>>    replaced by the new project filename, excluding the file extension.
>>
>>
>>    Metadata
>>    --------
>>
>>    A template's METADIR must contain the required files, and might optionally
>>    contain any of the optional files
>>
>>        Required Files
>>        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>        /info.html  - Contains html formatted information about the template
>>                which is used by the user to determine if the template is what
>>                they are after. The <title> tag determines the actual name of
>>                the template that is exposed to the user for template selection.
>>
>>                Using html to format this document means that images can be
>>                inlined without having to invent a new scheme.
>>
>>                Only HTML supported by wxHTML can be used to format this
>>                document.
>>
>>        Optional Files
>>        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>        /icon.png   - A 64 x 64px PNG icon file which is used as a clickable
>>                icon in the template selection dialog.
>>
>>
>>    Operation
>>    ---------
>>
>>    The KiCad File menu will be modified to change New from a menu item to a
>>    pop-out menu item, in the same manor as Open Recent. There will be two
>>    options on the pop-out menu:
>>
>>    Blank -> Will act exactly the same as the current new menu item so
>> that anyone
>>    who wishes to create a blank project won't have their settings lost or feel
>>    alienated.
>>
>>    From Template -> Will open the template selection dialog.
>>
>>    The template selection dialog will have a list of icons on the left, and a
>>    wxHTML window to the right. A single click on a template's icon on the left
>>    will load that templates info.html metadata file and display it in the
>>    wxHTML window.
>>
>>    A double click on a template's icon will start the new project creation and
>>    will open a new file dialog. If the user selects a valid location for the
>>    new project, the template will be copied to the new project location
>>    (excluding METADIR as mentioned earlier) and any files that match the string
>>    replacement rules will be renamed to reflect the new project's name.
>>
>>    The list of available templates will be gathered from the following sources:
>>
>>    wxStandardPaths::GetExecutableDir()/../share/template/
>>    wxStandardPaths::GetUserDataDir()/templates/
>>    wxGetEnv(wxT("KICAD_TEMPLATES"))
>
> No news is good news! ;-)
>
> I'm starting to implement this now.
>
> Best Regards, Brian.

This is now mostly working, I've just got the new template selector
dialog to finish off. The GUI bits always seem to take a while to
finish!

Best Regards, Brian.