kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andreas Butti <andreas_b123@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everybody

I'm new to the KiCad mailing list. I'm a computer scientists, in my free 
time I sometimes use KiCad.

I had some Ideas to improve the project tree, and if the community 
thinks they are useful I may can implement them.

What I would change the tree to the following format:

- Root: Workspace (instead of Project)
    - Projects
        - Project A
        - Project B
        - Project C
    - Templates
        -MyTemplate A
        -MyTemplate B
    - Libraries
        - AVRs
        - RGB LED PLCC6

etc.

If you now clicks to "Projects" you get on the right side the options to
- Create a new Project
- Create a new Project from Template

If you click to "Template" you get the options
- Create a new template
- Search for templates [INPUT FIELD]
- [List with newest online templates, can be downloaded]

If you click to "Libraries"you get the options:
- Create a new library
- Search for libraries [INPU TFIELD]
- [List with newest online libraries, can be downloaded]

if you click to a Project you get the start screen you now have:
- On top the buttons to start Eeschema, CvPcb etc.
- Below is not the Log output, there is
    - A Field for a Project Description (I think text, maybe RTF)
    - A list to assign Libraries to the project. The Libraries are 
managed in the workspace


And now the technical background:
Add workspace, new views on the right etc. is not much to do. It means 
we need additional to the project also a workspace file.

For downloading Libs or Template we have to opinions:
- Define a standard, everybody who wants to provide libraries has to 
implement this interface (e.g. REST)
- Allow Plug ins

I would do a mix of both, we should define a standard with REST, but  we 
should implement the client in a scripting language. We can e.g. use 
python or javascript. (e.g. https://developers.google.com/v8/embed)

Then its easy to add 3rd party sites, e.g. if somebody wants to share 
his libraries or templates on github it only needs a github client 
javascript and we can access such libraries from main KiCad screen.

What do you think about?

Andreas