X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at neurotica.com Message-ID: <4F271259.1000200@neurotica.com> Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:57:45 -0500 From: Dave McGuire User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.24) Gecko/20111109 Thunderbird/3.1.16 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: [geda-user] PCB: place via using action? References: <4F26CD8D DOT 9000902 AT zepler DOT net> <20120130091242 DOT 0de80803 AT svelte> In-Reply-To: <20120130091242.0de80803@svelte> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com On 01/30/2012 12:12 PM, Colin D Bennett wrote: >> Is it possible to place a via using an action rather than the >> mouse? I have a number of vias I need to place at the same >> relative offset to different pads. At the moment I'm marking >> (Ctrl-M) each pad and placing a via with the mouse at the correct >> offset, which is somewhat laborious. Ideally I'd like to mark the >> pad then do something like >> >> :PlaceVia(CurrentMark, +x, +y) >> >> I've searched the documented actions but, unless I've missed >> something, I can't see anything suitable. > > This sort of feature would be REALLY helpful for me in designing > footprints, if it were more general, such as allowing me to request > a surface-mount pad be placed at a certain location. > > I'm often torn between using the pcb GUI to draw footprints or > making the footprint by hand in the .fp file format. I think the > GUI should be more helpful in allowing the user to be VERY SPECIFIC > when drawing a footprint, thus arriving at a solution with the best > of the GUI and the best of the direct-input text file format. This would actually be a great feature. It's a time-proven way of doing this sort of thing. AutoCAD, for example, supports doing exactly this, and everyone I know who uses AutoCAD *always* uses the command line to specify placement-critical points. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA