kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/9/2014 1:23 PM, Lorenzo Marcantonio wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 09, 2014 at 01:07:15PM -0400, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>> I'm going to side with Brian on this one.  I don't want the position of
>> my reference designators changed from where *I* put them irregardless of
>> the plot type.  I really don't care what the IPC rule is.  If I didn't
>> want the there, I would have put them somewhere else.  If you saw how
>> small the boards I lay out are, you would understand how silly this rule is.
> 
> We just agreed on that, and I already backed off the patch. I don't know
> your boards but mine usually are so full that there is no place
> whatsoever for reference designators:D So I size the silk as for
> assembly rules (and plot the assembly big enough to use it). If you read
> the article for sub 0603 parts the assembly package is actually
> *enlarged* to make space for the text! (luckily never had the need for
> them...)

Thanks.

> 
>> This this the problem with most standards.  There are always use cases
>> which the implementer could not foresee that make the standard
>> impossible follow thereby rendering it useless or even worse an
>> impediment from getting something useful accomplished.
> 
> Well, at least IPC is a voluntary standard; they make your board even if
> it doesn't comply (usually). However I find most of it quite useful and
> well tought. Also, it's the only standard we have around:P
> 
>> I think Orson was (is?) working on the module editor which addressed
>> some of these issues.
> 
> Yesterday I checked and there was no way to choose the layer for the
> text. Should be easily done, however. I'm more worried about how the
> rest of kicad reacts to text on different layers (like the picking
> code).

I hope it would be chosen just like any other object in Pcbnew.
Obviously we would need to verify this.

> 
>> The library developers would have to agree on a layer to add the
>> assembly text and update the footprints accordingly.
> 
> I'd say the fabrication layer, since it was added exactly for that
> reason...
> 

Makes sense to me.