kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Simon Wells <swel024@xxxxxxxxx>]

i am sure i have done something stupid but for me the export->STEP
option is greyed out. any hints?

On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 2:45 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 9/22/2016 10:43 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>> Simon,
>>
>> Using .mb_str() is valid.  Using static_cast is more c++ish.  Take a
>> look at the "Conversion to C string" section of the wxString documentation:
>
> http://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.0/classwx_string.html
>
> I'm ok either way.
>
> Sorry about the fat fingered send.
>
> Wayne
>
>>
>>
>> On 9/22/2016 10:42 AM, Simon Wells wrote:
>>> Hey wayne,
>>>
>>> the commit broke my build...
>>>
>>> in kicad2step.cpp
>>>
>>> lines 61-81 have _( "BLAH BLAH") which errors out as not convertible
>>> from wxstring to char *. I have patched it with .mb_str() and was
>>> preparing a patch but i am not sure if this is the correct way, care
>>> to comment before i send a patch?
>>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 2:18 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On 9/21/2016 9:17 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/21/2016 7:27 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>>>>>> OK, I've updated the branch with the following changes:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. removed wxT() from kicad2step and dialogs. The remaining wxT()
>>>>>>> instances are created by wxFormBuilder.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2. refined the Export STEP GUI for cases in which the exporter
>>>>>>> fails (returns an error or segfaults).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the fixes.  I got everything merged on my computer at work so
>>>>>> I'll just pick up where I left off tomorrow.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> No problem; thanks for testing the branch.
>>>>
>>>> I tested this and everything looked fine.  I did notice in your last
>>>> commit that you used stderr.  I'm not sure that has any meaning on
>>>> windows but it didn't seem to break anything.  I committed you kicad
>>>> step export branch to the product repo.  Great job.  Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> I do have one comment.  The vrml exporter includes the silk screen and
>>>> traces which results in a much more detailed board model.  It would be
>>>> nice if step export had this as well.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It also just occurred to me that sometimes the OCE library may
>>>>>>> cause a hang. I can work on a generic dialog to launch an
>>>>>>> external app which connects to the apps stdout + stderr and
>>>>>>> which has a CANCEL button to kill the process - any comments?
>>>>>>> Should I put such a dialog into the "common" library?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm wondering if you could make something abstract enough to work in all
>>>>>> the places where we run external apps.  These dialogs always seem pretty
>>>>>> task specific like the netlist and bom dialogs?  You could try I guess.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The best abstraction I can think of at the moment is to instantiate a dialog
>>>>> which simply has a window showing the stderr + stdout of the running app
>>>>> and a cancel button to kill the process if necessary. All other customizations
>>>>> should be done in a parent window. I'll come up with something and apply it
>>>>> to the BOM and netlist generation as well.
>>>>
>>>> Given that we've never had any issues with the bom and netlist external
>>>> processes, it may not be worth the effort although I'm not opposed to
>>>> the idea.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The fact that a process using OCE can hang brings up the
>>>>>>> question of whether it is better to leave kicad2step as a
>>>>>>> separate app or whether it is generally OK as a plugin and
>>>>>>> the odd crash due to bugs in OCE and/or the STEP/IGES
>>>>>>> models would be acceptable. We can stuff the plugin
>>>>>>> invocations into their own thread and check for completion,
>>>>>>> but unlike the case with a separate process, we cannot
>>>>>>> guarantee there is no memory corruption or leakage.
>>>>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ughh!  You're not making me feel any better about oce.  It would be nice
>>>>>> to be able to kill a rouge process though.  Doesn't the oce library api
>>>>>> provide some kind of error reporting capability?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> OCE does have an error reporting scheme but I've seen it hang
>>>>> indefinitely while performing some operations such as shape healing
>>>>> on defective STEP models. In other instances it eventually stops
>>>>> after it has hogged the maximum memory that the system would
>>>>> give it. In both cases it's not possible to get error information from
>>>>> within OCE. Unfortunately such bad behavior is not unique to OCE; the
>>>>> MCAD world in particular seems to be full of buggy libraries, but to
>>>>> be fair the tasks involved are incredibly difficult and users no doubt
>>>>> are always coming up with cases that the developers hadn't checked for.
>>>>
>>>> Are we the only project that pushes these libraries that hard?  We do
>>>> seem to find our fair share of library issues.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Somewhat off-topic: grep shows me that the source code
>>>>>>> and headers are full of wxT().  Since wxT() had been
>>>>>>> deprecated years ago and KiCad is no longer compatible
>>>>>>> with versions of wxWidgets which required wxT(), perhaps
>>>>>>> we should ask devs to purge wxT() from the headers and
>>>>>>> sources which they touch? I think that might also get devs
>>>>>>> into the habit of not using wxT() - even I still use it without
>>>>>>> realizing it - bad habits die hard. :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I caught myself using wxT() while writing the legacy schematic plugin
>>>>>> several times.  It will take time to get used to it but we will get
>>>>>> there.  If you happen to be working on a file, please feel free to
>>>>>> remove them.  I don't think we need to do the mass purge just yet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> OK; I might create some patches for the bits I'd worked on in the
>>>>> past like VRML export and IDF export.
>>>>
>>>> For small change sets (<= 5 commits), please send me patch sets using
>>>> format-patch or send-email.  It's easier than me having to add remotes
>>>> and go through the whole pull rebase cycle.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Wayne
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> - Cirilo
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - Cirilo
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 3:04 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Cirilo,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I just tested this since you fixed the windows extension issue.  The
>>>>>>>> menu item is enabled but I always get an "Unable to create step file
>>>>>>>> whenever there are spaces in the file name and/or path."  You didn't by
>>>>>>>> chance forget to double quote the command line string did you?  If you
>>>>>>>> don't, spaces in file and/or path names in command strings will fail.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Just a couple of quick comments nothing major.  wxT() macros are no
>>>>>>>> longer required in wx3 so try to remember not to use it anymore since
>>>>>>>> it's slated to be deprecated in the future.  It's also not necessary to
>>>>>>>> convert path separators in strings when you are already using
>>>>>>>> wxFileName.  You can use wxFileName::GetFullPath() which will return the
>>>>>>>> native separators no matter what you feed it with.  You can also convert
>>>>>>>> to the unix file separator for storage by using wxFileName::GetFullPath(
>>>>>>>> wxPATH_UNIX ).  This removes the need for #ifdef WINDOWS/#endif to do
>>>>>>>> the separator conversion.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Wayne
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 9/19/2016 3:53 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Looks good, I will test it soon. But I noticed that it looks like you
>>>>>>>>> did not use the copyright template copyright.h from the root of the source.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Den 19/09/2016 09.46 skrev "Cirilo Bernardo" <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>> <mailto:cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>>:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>     The kicad-step feature branch now implements a STEP Export. The menu
>>>>>>>>>     item may need a new icon (I lazily reused the IDF icon). Any testing and
>>>>>>>>>     comments would be appreciated. The kicad2step utility which performs
>>>>>>>>>     the conversion is of course dependent on OCE and is only built when
>>>>>>>>>     KICAD_USE_OCE is defined. The "Export STEP" menu item is disabled
>>>>>>>>>     if the kicad2step executable is not found in the same directory as the
>>>>>>>>>     pcbnew executable.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>     https://code.launchpad.net/~cirilo-bernardo/kicad/+git/kicad-oce/+ref/kicad-step
>>>>>>>>>     <https://code.launchpad.net/~cirilo-bernardo/kicad/+git/kicad-oce/+ref/kicad-step>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>     - Cirilo
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
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