kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Folks,

I am trying to use the same hierarchical schematic and product two board files.  So my
plan is to have a symlink for the board file which can point to either of the two boards,
depending on which I am currently working on.

That's all fine in theory (but I'm not there yet).

There are some differences between the schematics of the two boards,  peripherals only.  I
have put those into separate hierarchical sheets.  For example, one board might have 2
RS485 ports whereas the second one has 1 such port.

What would be really nice is if the hieracrhical sheet reference, the net binding site
under the new architecture, could be told that the referenced subsheet is disabled.  This
is simply a boolean toggle, but visible in graphical form.

When disabled, it would:

a) cause the netlist to be generated without the subsheet.
b) treat the net paths into the subsheet as "no connects" and not complain during ERC.

With this architecture, you could actually have multiple alternatives wired in place, and
then manually enable only one of the hierarchical sheet alternatives.  This would give you
the option of using a different alternative peripheral, but also give you the option of
employing pulldowns or similar instead of true no-connects.

I was thinking now is a good time to bring this up, because as sheet net bindings get
moved into the referencing site, and out of the referenced site (sheet), you now have a
referencing site specific place to store this flag.


Dick