kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[jp charras <jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Le 27/04/2014 10:11, Lorenzo Marcantonio a écrit :
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 09:57:26AM +0200, Francesco Del Degan wrote:
> 
>> After using kicad for some months, i decided to start to implement
>> an IPC-7351 compliant footprint wizard that will cover several packages,
>> listed in standard itself.
> 
> Another one that bought the standard? nice:D
> I did an explanation document a while ago if you need more informations
> on the computation itself.
> 
>> 1. implement the entire wizards and dialogs in C++, adding a starting
>> button (New IPC Footprint wizard) in module editor.
> 
> Noooo... foolish, we have python *and* a launchpoint for footprint
> creation.
> 
>> 2. Extend the python scripting footprint wizard, allowing choices-based
>> (radio-buttons, dropdowns menus, etc) fields, dynamic parameters, and
>> wxPython dialogs.
> 
> That's the way to do it.
> 
>> Consider that the dialogs would also display some help images (with
>> standard reference quoting) and a small preview window that will change as
>> soon as you change parameters or choices into the dialog itself.
> 
> I.e. exactly all the others IPC wizards...
> 
> Just a thing: it would be nice to use the JEDEC symbols instead of the
> old IPC ones. The C revision is due to publish since something like june
> of last year, and they seem to have adopted them too.
> 

I confirm we have already a footprint wizard mechanism inside the
footprint editor, which works fine.
(you just need to use option -DKICAD_SCRIPTING=ON to compile Kicad)

Wizard themselves (entirely written in Python) are outside the Kicad
code and are plugins, called by the footprint editor.
Few days ago, a contributor added wizards for DIP, QFP and BGA
footprints, and some utilities to help writing wizards.
Therefore:
First, tell us more about the footprint types you want to add?
(IPC-7351 compliant footprint wizard has no meaning for me)
Second, have a look at these wizards, and try to use the existing framework.
(see pcbnew\scripting\plugins in Kicad sources)
They are powerful (without radio-buttons, dropdowns menus), etc, and do
not use wxPython.

Be careful with wxPython when it is used in Pcbnew: today we have some
troubles with it:
- It does not work on Windows (at least for me)
- It has serious issues (crashes) (not yet fixed) on Linux.
(I do not know the status on OSX)

Thanks.

-- 
Jean-Pierre CHARRAS