kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/02/2013 12:10 PM, Tomasz Wlostowski wrote:
> 
> There is a demo available (kicad-gal-orson branch), that shows a simple 
> selection tool (Go to Edit->Selection tool with the GAL view enabled). 
> It's not yet useful for any practical purposes and very unstable - It's 
> purpose is it just to show the overall idea and prepare ground for 
> technical discussion.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your feedback,
> Tom


It looks great.

I have one minor feature that you would have probably added anyways, and that is a way to
handle persistent or default behaviours that are not addressed in any particular tool.

What do I mean by persistent behaviours?  Example:

I like being able to hit the space bar at any time to set the relative origin.  Would be
pain to put that into every tool.


For that I can suggest two things for you to think about:

a) If tools are extended from a base class, the persistent behaviours could be inherited.

b) If tools are pushed on a stack when they become active, and if you have a mechanism
which the tool uses to report whether it handled an event or not, then if not handled you
can pass the event to the next tool on the stack.  With this strategy you put the
persistent behaviours into the baseline tool, and stack temporary other tools onto the
stack above it.  Although you can go to more that two high, this architecture does not
require that you do.

In general, those that have worked with state machines know that they provide benefits in
troubleshooting.  What you have done is to essentially divide what would otherwise be one
big state machine into smaller ones.  And I think this is a great idea.  :)

Exciting stuff,

Dick