kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Oliver Walters <oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx>]

Following is a screenshot of what happens when a symbol cannot be remapped:

[image: Inline image 1]

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 5:56 PM, Oliver Walters <
oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I finally had a chance to try the symbol remapping on a real project, and
> I have a few thoughts on how I think it could be improved from a users
> perspective (with code to back up my thoughts!)
>
> 1. "Remap" should replace "rescue"
>
> The remap tool, with some work, should replace the "symbol rescue" tool.
> There are two major cases which it should cover:
>
> a) Handling "legacy" (v4 and prior) symbols which do not specify a library
> nickname
> b) Handling missing libraries or symbols
>  i) A library has been moved or deleted
> ii) An item has been renamed in a library
>
> The rescue tool does not seem to work at all now, with the new
> sym-lib-table approach. I think I have come up with a way to combine the
> two tools that provides a better approach anyhow.
>
> 2. Let users "remap" multiple times.
>
> The current implementation only allows remap if *all* the symbols are
> un-mapped. If a partial remap occurs then the users are left high and dry.
> Partial remaps should be allowed, this gives the users chance to fix their
> library tables or whatever.
>
> 3. Separate project-remap from symbol-remap
>
> The regeneration of library tables should be separate from symbol
> remapping. Rescue the project once, (with a visible warning to user at
> first project load, as is currently the case). But, allow symbol remap from
> the menu at any stage (even if there are no symbols to remap!)
>
> 4. Group similar symbols together when remapping
>
> If a schematic has 100+ 'R' symbols, they should be grouped together so
> that they can *all* be remapped at once. Collect similar symbols together.
> (See demonstrator image below).
>
> 5. Allow manual remap selection
>
> If auto-remapping fails for a particular symbol, allow the user to select
> a new symbol manually
>
> 6. Allow skipping of remapped symbols
>
> Some may be not able to be remaped at the current time. Allow user to skip
> and come back later.
>
> 7. Provide a dry-run first and let the user see what is happening.
>
>
> I have actually implemented all of the points above. See demonstrator
> images here:
>
> A) Dry run with explicit output messages, and information on what will be
> changed
>
> [image: Inline image 1]
>
> B) Success!
>
> [image: Inline image 2]
>
> If this is a good approach I will spend some more time on this, there are
> still some issues to work out. However, It is (to me) a much cleaner
> approach.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Oliver
>