kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In order to prevent illegal file name characters when converting
footprint libraries from legacy and eagle (and possibly others) to the
PRETTY format, I modified Dick's original URL concept for illegal FPID
characters to include all illegal file name characters.  In order to
guarantee that PRETTY footprint files would be compatible across all
platforms I had the use the Windows illegal file name character set
(which includes the Linux and OSX characters sets).  This means that if
you have any legacy or eagle footprints with any of the characters
\/:"<>|*? in footprint name, they will be converted to %xx where xx is
the hexadecimal equivalent of the character when the library is loaded.
 For example, if you have a footprint named FOO/BAR, it will be
converted to FOO%2fBAR when loaded.  This will be the name that is
displayed in CvPcb, the footprint editor, the footprint viewer, and the
file name when saved a PRETTY footprint library.  I decided to go this
route rather than creating nag warnings to change the footprint names
when saving the library to the PRETTY format.  I also add filters to the
footprint name text edit controls so you will no longer be able to use
any illegal file name characters when naming footprints.  I don't think
this will effect too many users but there have been a few reports of
this issue so I wanted to give everyone a heads up.

Thanks,

Wayne