kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 08:36:53AM +0100, jp charras wrote:
> * This mode does not exist in eeschema, and was poorly supported in cvpcb.

Uh... what could use would be in cvpcb? And eeschema don't need it, so
no need to expose it anyway. With that reasoning you'd have to pull
sketch out too, since it doesn't exist in eeschema :P

> * The only one plotter which was actually using this mode is HPGL, now
> outdated (using sketch instead of line mode gives good results).

Agree (not on the outdated thing anyway, I suppose a lot of program
could use it as an import format thru hp2xx); however now that there is
DXF the biggest use for it vanished.

> DXF is not related to this change.
> The way DXF works has changed a long time ago. It does not use plot
> modes. It has its own mode.

OK, no problem then.

> In fact it uses a 0 (or 1) pixel lines thickness, which works well only
> in the basic wxDC engine, which does not exist anymore in wxWidgets

OK, question: what if I want to use a fscking thin pixel line? :D Think
about inkscape in outline mode, that's what I want to have. Also, how is
sketch mode implemented? Just draw them in that way. OpenGL for example
has lines and line strips (too bad for the bad implementation of
thickness)

> The main drawback is the loss of the line mode for footprint texts and
> outlines.
> But the new (more powerful) GAL mode could give a better solution than
> the line mode (no need to add a line draw mode option in GAL).

More than a line mode something that just force pen width to 1px,
shouldn't be difficult to handle. Also, text in GAL still really sucks,
having it in line mode (with line strips) would be a big improvement
(too bad that many opengl implementation don't handle wide lines... intel
stops at 5px, IIRC).

> For drawing engine, we have to think GAL, not old wxDC.

Too bad that it's way more usable (on the eye) the old wxDC, not the GAL
one. A good solution would be to persuade GAL to work like wxDC.

I'd say the requirement should be something like:

- Tracks/pad in filled or sketch mode
- Text in filled or thin mode (I don't call it line to distinguish with
  the old one)
- Outlines surely in filled mode but the depending on the layer they
  would be useful in all the three modes: fabrication in sketch has no
  meaning but silk in sketch is useful to check silk alignment.

I think that it would be better to pull back the LINE mode and maybe
implement drawing it in GAL with thin lines (like these for sketch
modes).

I could do work for that, I really find the line mode useful for silk,
assembly and text during routing.

-- 
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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