kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Chris Pavlina <pavlina.chris@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Mar 05, 2017 at 01:03:34PM -0500, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> On 3/5/2017 12:39 PM, Chris Pavlina wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 05, 2017 at 12:36:20PM -0500, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> >> On 3/4/2017 8:11 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
> >>> On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> On 2/27/2017 11:28 AM, Chris Pavlina wrote:
> >>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There are a few problems with "standalone mode" that I see. One of the
> >>>>> biggest is demonstrated [1] - kiway services aren't available. In my
> >>>>> opinion this really is detrimental to the function of the software -
> >>>>> e.g. eeschema shouldn't be missing features just because it was started
> >>>>> in standalone.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Another problem is the awkwardness of packaging/install on systems that
> >>>>> expect applications to be discrete units, like macOS. There's some
> >>>>> foreshadowing on the bug tracker of trouble wrt. signed packages, which
> >>>>> I couldn't immediately dig up.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'd really like if we could change this. I don't think standalone mode
> >>>>> the way we implement it is necessary. It is necessary that one can open
> >>>>> a pure schematic file, or a pure PCB file, outside of the context of a
> >>>>> project -- but I do NOT think this should require starting the
> >>>>> individual application separately from the project manager.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> What if the project manager simply understood the concept of single
> >>>>> files as well as projects?
> >>>>
> >>>> I honestly don't know how this will work out.  Regardless of how the
> >>>> editors are launched, the project configuration is very much in play and
> >>>> there is currently no support for multiple projects open simultaneously.
> >>>>  I don't know how you will open a single schematic in a manner which
> >>>> will wreak havoc on the symbol library lists.  Boards are a different
> >>>> story since their footprints are embedded so it's probably less of an
> >>>> issue.  Once the new schematic file format is in play than the symbol
> >>>> library issue is no longer in play.  I'm not opposed to you trying but I
> >>>> don't think we are any where near ready to attempt to head down that
> >>>> path any time soon.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> I think the idea is to have a single executable which can act as the
> >>> standalone launcher for all the kiway blobs rather than have N
> >>> installed versions of what is essentially the same launcher. Kicad
> >>> should still work as expected: if it opens a *.pro file then eeschema
> >>> and pcbnew can talk to eachother and if it opens a *.sch/*.kicad_pcb
> >>> file or what not then the program invoked acts like the standalone.
> >>>
> >>> Although it would be nice to have standalone instances of eeschema,
> >>> pcbnew and so on magically talk to eachother, we all know that would
> >>> require a well-planned IPC based mechanism and that's not what's
> >>> being proposed here.
> >>
> >> This should be transparent unless someone changed it.  When launched in
> >> stand alone mode, the kiway messaging falls back to the legacy sockets
> >> implementation for message passing.  The problem becomes how to handle
> >> the IPC when you open the schematic from one project and the board from
> >> a different project in stand alone mode.
> > 
> > You don't.
> > 
> > What's wrong with just not having IPC between standalone instances? They
> > shouldn't need to pass anything amongst themselves.
> 
> This is the legacy behavior which was preserved.  There are still users
> who prefer stand alone mode and expect the IPC to continue to work as it
> did before the kiway work was done.  This somewhat drove the kiway
> design decisions.  We can always decide to do away with the stand alone
> mode and go fully single app but I'm sure there will be a fairly large
> group of users who will not be happy about that decision.  I have no
> idea how large this group will be but given passed responses to such
> suggestions I would guess this is a larger group than you would expect.

These users will be quiet if we provide an obvious alternative way to do
what they are using standalone mode for.

> 
> > 
> > At some point it would be nice to be able to pass clipboard items
> > between instances, but this can be handled by wxClipboard.
> > 
> >>
> >>>
> >>> - Cirilo
> >>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1668157
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
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> >>
> >>
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>