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Message-ID: <1404133582.16971.27.camel@pcjc2lap>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Silkscreened component values, mailing list, and
 gEDA development
From: Peter Clifton <pcjc2 AT cam DOT ac DOT uk>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 14:06:22 +0100
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On Mon, 2014-06-30 at 07:26 -0500, mskala AT ansuz DOT sooke DOT bc DOT ca wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2014, Peter Clifton wrote:
> > > I have found bug reports about this dating at least as far back as May
> > > 2005, but nothing seems to have been done about it in nine years.
> >
> > Its not like we can arbitrarily change any of the existing symbols..
> > doing so would break otherwise working designs.
> 
> Is that really true?  At least on the PCB side, changes to footprint files
> don't seem to take effect on a board unless the user goes through a
> laborious process to manually replace them one by one.

True, PCB does hard-copy the symbol into the .pcb file, but if we
changed the library at some arbitrary point, it would mean any newly
transferred symbols would then not match existing ones.

It might not affect people on legacy designs, but you will always catch
people with things still in progress.

The only way we can acceptably change this kind of thing is:

1) Rip out all libraries (very obvious to users) and start again
2) Add new, distinct symbols and footprints to the existing libraries


We were at one point planning to do 1), replacing gschem's symbol
library with a minimal, schematic biased library of primitive devices
(eg. "DIODE", not 1N4002 etc..). We had also talked of mapping between
generic symbols (DIODE with A&C PINS, transistors with B,C,E), into
pin-numbers for actual components, but this never happened. We just
don't have the resources to produce a huge vetted library like the big
commercial tool vendors do.


-- 
Peter Clifton <peter DOT clifton AT clifton-electronics DOT co DOT uk>

Clifton Electronics