kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2014 at 02:19:48PM +0200, Tomasz Wlostowski wrote:
> I fully agree, these are mostly general purpose layers. But we don't have
> enough of them.

Notice that I said: 'something like 8 + 16 general purpose layers'... 
Only fabrication and courtyard have behaviour associated. Unless you
want keepouts as layers for definition in modules (example: bluetooth
module with mandatory copper keepout for antenna), since modules can't
contain zones.

> Sure. With the new geometry library, checking courtyard clearances will be
> peanuts ;)

Never said it's difficult, but has to be done. Even without the new lib
it's nothing more than the zone clearance code to be called.

> Could you share your code? I'm not concerned very much about performance. My
> experiments with wrapping each flag in a static object showed that in
> assembly it's a difference between:

At the moment I'm doing it the Altium way: a 64 bit unsigned int (as an
enum). Really the problem are the literals... my code is in my branch on
launchpad, look at the include/layers_id_colors_and_visibility.h for the
bulk of the definition (mostly idiotic inline functions to operate on
them). Other things are some ints around converted to LAYER_NUM or
LAYER_MSK and the necessary I/O routine changes.o

At the moment no changeable name or 'new layer' features (I only needed
assembly and courtyard). However it's a starting point (for up to total
64 layers)

> Layer IDs and predefined purposes are not changeable in Altium. In fact, it
> stores layer sets as 64-bit hex numbers. By layer name I mean what is shown

It has mechanical 1, mechanical 2, mechanical 3... :D in the video
tutorial the first thing they make you do is a table with the meaning of
them:P

> on the screen. We would be completely satisfied with the possibility to
> change the general purpose (Eco1, Eco2, Dwgs, Cmts, F.Adhes, B.Adhes) and
> copper layer names.

Last time they rejected even the idea of *localizing* them. 

> Also a possibility to display shortened names in the selector widget would
> be nice, it takes a bit too much space.

Layer grouping would be most useful for the sidebar, since it would be
quite full with a lot of layers (and at the moment it can't be scrolled,
either).

> Photoshop 5.0 from 1998 was richer in features than gimp is in 2014. I don't
> think saying that "gimp survived without something for so long" is a valid
> argument here.

What I meant is that it's desiderable but I could survive without...
Without a fabrication it's a big problem to make assembly drawings from
silk (because refdes need to be relocated).

-- 
Lorenzo Marcantonio
Logos Srl