kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Ed Henderson <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wayne, thank you so much for the feedback.

It sounds like the simple approach would be generate a netlist format 
compatible with KiCad.
The problem to solve there would be the footprint data connection.

Long term, an export to a KiCad schematic would be the cleanest 
solution, but it does require more work.

Thanks for the information.

Ed

> Wayne Stambaugh <mailto:stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>
> January 18, 2018 at 5:47 AM
> Hi Ed,
>
> I'm not 100% sure what you are asking. Are you only talking about
> export for board layout or export to a kicad schematic? If you are
> talking about a board layout, then the netlist should be adequate.
> There is no file format document for the netlist file format but you
> should be able to take a sample kicad netlist file and understand the
> file format. It is fairly straight forward. Human readability is part
> of the new s-expression file formats. You will have to understand how
> footprints are loaded from the libraries so that could be tricky. If
> you are talking about export to a kicad schematic and symbol library,
> that will be more involved. The schematic and symbol library file
> formats are documented[1]. However, they soon will be replaced with the
> new s-expression format in the next version of kicad. If you really
> wanted to make life easier for your users, you could create a kicad
> schematic plugin that parses your file formats direction to kicad
> objects. This would require you to have a good understanding of the
> kicad code base and be an experienced c++ developer. I hope this helps.
> Good luck.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
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> Ed Henderson <mailto:ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> January 17, 2018 at 11:19 AM
> Greetings all.
>
> I am a developer of an online schematic/drawing tool. This tool does 
> simple schematics, but in no way would compete with a tool like KiCad.
> We would however like to offer users a path for their projects if they 
> need to go further with them. KiCad is a wonderful tool, and we would 
> like to see what we could do
> to allow users to move their work into a KiCad project.
>
> I'm writing to ask for suggestions on how we might do this in the 
> 'simplest' manner. If we were able to generate just a netlist (not 
> graphical symbols or wiring), would there be a useful way to use that 
> information in a KiCad project?
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions you might have to offer.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ed