kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 3:24 AM, Nick Østergaard <oe.nick@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2015-10-03 10:45 GMT+02:00 Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>:
> > If anyone has time to have a peek at my 3D refactor branch:
> >
> > bazaar.launchpad.net/~cirilo-bernardo/kicad/3drefactor
> >
> > the existing code can be built within the build/3dv subdirectory after
> > configuring kicad for compilation. The kicad code itself is quite a few
> > revisions out of date but that doesn't matter at this point since the
> > code being developed is not yet touching any other kicad code and
> > the test program 'test3dmm' can be built on its own.
> >
> > At the moment the code will only work on Linux (i'll need help getting
> > the plugin loading to work on OSX and MSWin) and you can't currently
> > see how the plugin will affect the list of models which you can associate
> > since I haven't made the file browser dialog yet, but what you can see
> > at the moment is the  3D model path configuration dialog which is
> > accessible from File->Select (ctrl-t). I'd appreciate any feedback on the
> > path configuration dialog at this stage since I'd like to avoid doing too
> > much work which people might not like.
>
> When I select a path or folder it will not update the path shown in
> the list. It keeps writing ./, but I guess that is just a display
> issue.
>
> Maybe it is good to make it also show environment variables as we see
> in the footprint library table dialog. I think those kind of dialogs
> should be similar.
>
> > The 3d path config dialog allows a user to edit the list of paths which
> > will be searched if a PCB file names a relative filename. There is also
> > an implied entry (never saved and never displayed) which is the current
> > project directory.
>
> Mmm, I am not a fan of hidden information. Consider showing the path
> somehow. I mean, why would you like to hide it?
>
>
Paths which change all the time such as the project path cannot be edited
anyway. I think it will be more confusing to show the path and when the
user edits the path they find the next time they start the configuration
dialog that the path is still there. Most people assume that the software
must magically check the project directory for files, as we have seen from
many of the "Kicad can't find my 3D model" posts.


> > I'll work on the model file selector next, which isn't as simple an item
> > as it may sound, and should be able to implement all but the preview
> > of the model being browsed.
> >
> > One other item I'd like feedback on: should we still give the user the
> > option to save a full path or shall we automatically use a full path if
> > none of the configured paths are a root path of the model and in all
> > other cases automatically truncate paths to a root path stored in
> > the config file?
>
> You talk a lot about the model and a root path. But what about the project
> path?
>
>
The project path will always be treated as a root path to allow users to put
models into a subdirectory of the project (or even the project directory if
they really want to).


> > The one possibly big problem with using all relative
> > paths of couse is that is a user accidentally modifies/deletes paths
> > using the configurator, a project may not be able to find some (or all)
> > of its model files.
>
> Have you considered paths relative to $KIPRJMOD?
>

At the moment only ${KISYSMOD} is added, but I can add $KIPRJMOD
as well.

- Cirilo