X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com From: Kai-Martin Knaak Subject: Re: [geda-user] Footprint Generator Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:45:53 +0100 Lines: 67 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet AT ger DOT gmane DOT org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: a89-182-52-0.net-htp.de User-Agent: KNode/4.14.1 Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Edward Hennessy wrote: > I've created a GUI footprint generator for PCB. Very nice! I really like how the footprint source changes on the fly when I type in parameters. This is something the geda suite is still missing. There have been some tools floating around. http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:pcb_footprints#footprint_basics But they have not made it into the suite itself. > I've placed a screenshot, links, and instructions on > gedasymbols.org: > http://www.gedasymbols.org/user/edward_hennessy/gfootgen.html I too got error 404 for the link. Your whole section on gedasymbols did not seem to exist. A few hours later, the section appeared and the link works for me, now. > The source code for the program is located in GitHub: > https://github.com/ehennes775/gfootgen On a weekly updated debian/testing, the compile required the package ruby-gdk-pixbuf2 in addition the list given on gedasymbols. With this package installed, the compile went smoothly. Some remarks on the generator UI: * There is no header that gives a clear indication, what footprint template is currently in use. Suggestion: Put a header on top of the left column. Make the header a drop-down list with the content of the current "change..." button on the bottom left. * A dialog to change default style options would be nice. E.g. default line width, default font size, default mask clearance * I'd appreciate a way to save and read the parameters to generate a footprint. This would increase the usefulness of the generator by an order of magnitude :-) Suggestion: Stefan Salewski's footprint generator is written in Ruby, too. It is complimentary to your generator in that it comes without a GUI but reads parameters from a file. Maybe, your generator can be taught to read and write files in the format Stefan uses. http://www.ssalewski.de/SFG.html.en * Sometimes I had to guess what a property refers to. How about pop-up help bubbles for the parameters? * [ctrl-z] to undo a change would be nice. While at it, compliment it with [ctrl-shift-z] to redo * I tend to set the parameters number 2, 3, and 4 to the same string. Before the footprint is instantiated, the refdes and the value are rather undefined. To avoid confusion and make the identity of the footprint very clear regardless the settings in PCB, I set them all to the truncated name of the footprint file. Again, a very nice tool! ---<)kaimartin(>---