kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 05:28:47PM -0500, Karl Schmidt wrote:
> How about 2 dates - an editable 'release date' and a last modified date?
> Is the editable date actually a version number? (Totally valid way
> of doing things)  - which gets back to the best way to take a design
> from one version to the next. ( I would vote for
> yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm--ss for a default format ).

You forgot the time zone:D

For some uses the issue date (the 'official' name for your release date)
is stronger than a version number (typically for prior art in patent
issues). The last modified date as I said is very difficult to detect
*correctly*. Some workflows also use the print date (depending on the
paper trail required).

Also probably just printing the file could make it 'modified' (since it
contains the print options!). IIRC open office has a user option for
this...

> I have used a system where a board change increments the major
> number and a schematic change (that has yet to revise the board ) is
> them minor number- thus major.minor.ls - Where ls reflects a change
> to schematic information that does not change the netlist.

That's local policy. We have a major number for 'built' boards and then
a letter for each time a change roundtrip fabrication and it's rejected.

> When I make a new board revision - I also copy the design directory
> to a new one - change the directory and some file names to reflect
> the new version number.

Uhm that's really better done with a VCS... tag it and it stays there.

> This works for now, but brings up an item long on the wish list -
> how to backup a design into a tar-ball along with all the doc files
> associated with the design. ( the goal being to have a tarball that
> I can expand into a working project complete with everything ).

Isn't there the zip option in the project manager? 

> There is more than one way of incrementing a design version, and
> some may want to do it differently, I like the idea of a version
> number x,y,z AND a last modified date. I think there should be a
> 'kicad specific' way of doing this - that people are free to deviate
> from - but I would love to write up some form of 'best practice'.

I'd say that the best practice is to use a VCS :D since kicad files are
text files you can also use keywords (if your VCS of choice has them)
to make useful info appear on the drawing.

-- 
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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