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Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 07:40:45 +0100
From: Peter TB Brett <peter AT peter-b DOT co DOT uk>
To: <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] [RFC] Major changes to symbol/schematic libraries in
 geda-gaf
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On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:29:43 +0100, Peter TB Brett <peter AT peter-b DOT co DOT uk>
wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Rather than reply to all messages individually and fragment the
> discussion further, here are my thoughts on the feedback that I've
> received so far.
>
> ...
> 
> I'll follow up with a few further points in another e-mail.

On library masking (i.e. the question of whether a user library should mask
a system library) there are few things to think about.  Let's have a system
library A and a user library B, which both of which have an on-disk name of
"xylophone".  For the sake of clarity, let's also assume that there's a
design cache that Just Works.

- A's library.conf advertises gschem symbols and PCB footprints.  B's
advertises symbols only.  Does the "xylophone" library contain symbols,
footprints or both?  What does the library selection UI show the user?

- A's library.conf contains a title of "Marimbas" and B's library.conf
contains a title of "Celeste".  What does the library selection UI show the
user?

- If I'm reading the comments so far correctly, the primary reason for
wanting libraries to aggregate rather than mask is to abuse them as a
per-project design cache.  If there's a design cache that Just Works, does
it actually make better sense to mask than aggregate, from the point of
view of making a UI that's comprehensible to users?

Overall, I do genuinely believe that masking rather than aggregating allows
for a much more intuitive library management user interface.

A final point: I have been toying with the idea of allowing the file format
to specify resources in the form "<library_name>/<resource_name" in
addition to the current "<resource_name>" format.  Obviously, this breaks
the "abuse a library as a design cache" workflow, but on the other hand it
provides the *massive* benefit that when a user adds a library, all of the
resources in that library are actually usable without having to figure out
what's happening in the other enabled libraries.  It also means that the
order in which a user adds libraries to a project stops being significant.

Thanks for all your feedback so far.

Peter

-- 
Dr Peter Brett
http://peter-b.co.uk/