kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Brian Sidebotham <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 13 October 2014 17:22, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 10/12/2014 9:14 PM, Mark Roszko wrote:
>> Very minor but the main KiCAD window calls it "Schematic Library
>> Editor", eeschema calls it "Library Editor" and the window itself is
>> "Parts Library Editor".
>>
>> Can the name be standardized?
>>
>> It might be better to just call it "Component Library Editor" because
>> that's what the schematic symbols are called instead of Parts. Just
>> like PCB Footprint Editor is for Footprints.
>>
>
> The easy answer to your question is yes, the naming can and should be
> consistent.  The hard part of your question is consistently what?  This
> topic has been thoroughly discussed before.  You will find there is
> really no consensus.  Personally, I prefer symbol.  When I think of
> parts or components, I think of the physical objects themselves.  I
> don't actually place a resistor or an IC in a schematic.  I place a
> symbolic representation of that component in my schematic.  Dick's
> preference was part and he had valid justifications for his preference.
>  He even renamed some of the Eeschema code object names from COMPONENT
> to PART.  I really don't have a strong preference, that's why I never
> pushed the issue.  I doubt you are going to get a consensus on this
> issue.  You'll have to pick a term and live with the unhappy developers
> and users.  Welcome to open source programming :).

I think the manual should probably be the defacto standard, or at
least the first place to look in these inconsistency issues. The
manual uses component throughout and indeed Component name in the UI
Component properties dialog. All the screenshots show Component too.
If eeschema has changed these, they should be changed back. If a
change is made, it'll have to also be rippled through the
documentation which is a very heavy change and that in turn may cause
the translators a headache too.

Part is not a good candidate because, as per the manual we already
have something designated a part and that is essentially the
individual "gates" in the multi-gate IC. I find the description of
parts per package a bit weird, it should really be "Number of parts
per component"  and "Parts in component locked (cannot be swapped)"

Of course,it looks like the manual and editor are out-of-sync as the
library editor refers to parts as units and components as parts. It
can get so confusing when the two are not in sync! It'll take longer
to fix the documentation compared to fixing the code most likely.

I would call it "Schematic Library Editor" or else "Component Library
Editor", the latter probably being more accurate.

I also don't have a strong opinion, but consistency is key.

Best Regards,

Brian.