kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx>]

FWIW, I implemented blind-saving the schematic from CvPcb’s Save command so I could play around with it, and it feels natural enough...

> On 20 Mar 2018, at 19:44, Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> I think the cleanest user model would be to make both CvPcb and the Symbol Table alternative views of the document.  However, that either suggests a tabbed presentation (where two views are not visible at once), or hooking up CvPcb and the Symbol Table to reflect changes made in the schema.
> 
> Given that the normal use-case is more batch-oriented (the user has other tools to do single associations or edit single symbol fields), I don’t think it warrants that kind of investment.
> 
> So that means we’re stuck with a more modal approach.  (Note that while CvPcb is the equivalent of modeless today, it doesn’t update in real-time, and silently drops changes made to symbols which no longer exist in the schema.)
> 
> It sounds like we’re coalescing around having save be active in the (modal) dialogs.  How do we communicate that?  Perhaps just a “Save” button in the dialog is good enough — it both gives them the idea that this is just a dialog to the parent application (so “obviously” Save will save the parent schematic), and at least a clue that they can cmd-S as well.
> 
> If that’s the direction we want to move in, then I can just have CvPcb’s Save write the schema to disk for 5.0.  Re-presenting CvPcb as a dialog is probably too large (ie: risky) for 5.0.
> 
> 
> 
>> On 20 Mar 2018, at 18:00, Bernhard Stegmaier <stegmaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:stegmaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>> 
>> On a second thought it is basically just another special “Symbol Table” edit dialog.
>> 
>> The problem of losing a lot of unsaved work in case of a crash is also there for the “Symbol Table” dialog.
>> I could hack in a lot of valuable data in custom fields and although this dialog has an “Apply” button, you can’t save there.
>> I don’t know if some autosave would take care of it…
>> 
>> So, however it is done wrt save/apply it should be the same for both “dialogs”.
>> 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bernhard
>> 
>>> On 20. Mar 2018, at 18:55, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yeah I also agree that it should be basically a dialog of eeschema rather than a separate program, so I guess it makes sense to write changes immediately to the in-memory schematic, and mark it as unsaved for the user to consciously hit the save button later if desired.
>>> 
>>> -Jon
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 1:52 PM, Russell Oliver <roliver8143@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:roliver8143@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>> I second Bernhard's comments. 
>>> I think it shouldn't seem like a separate program, just another dialog of eeschema that takes the what you see is what you get approach. 
>>> As long as the footprint references are valid the schematic should be updated when the dialog is closed, and marked modified if there was a change. 
>>> Saving the schematic to file is then done through eeschema proper. 
>>> 
>>> Russell 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 04:40 Bernhard Stegmaier, <stegmaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:stegmaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>> Just my 2 cents…
>>> I would immediately write back any change in cvpcb to schematic. 
>>> I never understood why I have to hit the button to do that.
>>> There is no PCB preview or something like that in cvpcb, so I have to apply all changes anyway to check them directly in the PCB.
>>> Then, keep the button and save schematic with it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Bernhard
>>> 
>>>> On 20. Mar 2018, at 18:28, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Why don't you like the idea of saving the schematic when you hit the save button? That seems like a reasonable expected behavior to me at least.
>>>> 
>>>> (I dislike nag dialogs especially when they seem to have no purpose)
>>>> 
>>>> -Jon
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 1:26 PM, Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>>> CvPcb has a Save command (complete with disk icon).  Only it doesn’t do that.  (It simply writes the changes back to eeschema.)
>>>> 
>>>> If it were a dialog, I’d say that’s not good.  But this is CvPcb, where you could easily spend an hour making associations (hitting save every few minutes), only to have your machine and/or Kicad go down with all your changes.  That’s borderline horrific.
>>>> 
>>>> I don’t like the idea of blind-saving the eeschema document, but I think that would be better than what we have now.
>>>> 
>>>> Another idea would be to trigger an auto-save for each CvPcb save.  It’s not ideal because the user may think that there aren’t any changes in their eeschema file and therefore ignore the auto-save warning when restarting.
>>>> 
>>>> Yet another idea would be to foist the decision on the user with a “Save your schematic?” dialog every time you save in CvPcb.  That’s pretty hard to love, but with Orson’s new KIDIALOG we could at least have a “don’t ask me again” checkbox.  Maybe that’s not so bad….
>>>> 
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp <https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp>
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp <https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp>
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp <https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp>
>>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers <https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers>
>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp <https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp