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        Wed, 27 Jul 2016 10:17:13 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:17:11 +0300
From: "Vladimir Zhbanov (vzhbanov AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Re: Why we lost another user? -> Re: Why we just
 lost some users? -> Re: [geda-user] Stay or go?
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James,

On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 09:07:04PM -0400, James Battat (jbattat AT wellesley DOT edu) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
...
> Is a functional version for Mac OS X out of scope?  Or maybe
> other folks have had success with geda on mac.  I have not
> (well, gschem is sort of ok but I can’t get pcb to run on a
> mac).

No, we just have a disappearingly little support from power Mac
users like those who fixed things on Mac before. Your reports were
helpful (as reports of some *BSD users). There is another part of
the story, as you know. Some underlying libraries used in geda or
pcb, or even their dependences, might have been broken on some
platforms, and therefore again, we need help from Mac users to
learn if this is the case.

> 
> >> * Lack of coherent documentation for new users like myself to get off the
> >> ground
> > 
> > Should we have a manual that breaks down things for people who want
> > the simple answer? Basically instead of trying to explain each tool in
> > the chain but just how to use them in a flow?
> 
> Yes, I think that workflow-based tutorials are particularly
> useful, especially for new users.  The gschem->gsch2pcb->pcb and
> Your First Board tutorials were particularly helpful to me.  But
> they could be brought up to date (such as Import Schematics
> feature).

Please offer your changes, I'll add them.

> I would guess that my goals as a new user were not unusual.  I
> was looking for a workflow to take me from schematic to gerber
> for a custom board.  I didn’t need to run simulations.  I had no
> desire/need to work with a netlist.  I wanted to hop between
> schematic capture and layout without having to worry/know about
> how the connection between the two was handled.

These days we have no active pcb developers on the geda-gaf
side. I used it and worked on it before, but soon realized I have
no time/resources to work on both projects simultaneously. I would
be happy if, say, Igor2 or somebody else who're working on this
part of the project, posted their patches at least here, on the
list. Unfortunately we could not achieve even such sort of
collaboration, yet (probably I'm one of or the main culprit ;-),
though I still hope this will change in the future).

> I understand that the use of gschem does not lock you in to
> using pcb, but the two can certainly be used in harmony.  A
> coherent set of documentation to guide new users down that
> (presumably very) common path would be helpful.

Again, we have many wiki document authors/editors. If you could
write or have already written anything useful, I could try to give
you permissions to work on the wiki, or, at your option, just
write the text here, I or somebody of the current wiki editors
will add it.

> > 1. <How do I make a schematic with geda?>
> > 2. <How do I make a schematic with geda and then turn it into a netlist
> > to simulate it?>
> > 3. <How do I simulate a netlist with ngspice?>
> > 4. <How do I simulate a netlist with gnucap?>
> > 5. <How do I simulate a netlist with xyce?>
> > 6. <How do I make a schematic with geda and then a board layout with pcb?
> > 7. <How do I make a schematic with geda and then a board with pcb using a
> > Makefile to automate it?>
> > 8. <How do I make a schematic in geda to make a board with pcb and a
> > netlist to simulate it?>
> 
> All good things.  As a new user, I would have benefitted most
> from #1, 6, 7 (and also an easy-to-follow guide to custom symbol
> and footprint generation).

There are some nice docs on DJ's and other developer's sites (I
was going to translate some of them into Russian though never had
time to do this), such as, e.g., Stuart Brorson's site, which
now doesn't work for some reason. That was reported a while ago
and this is the way to lose or to not find useful bits of
documentation which is not published somewhere else. While I do
something like this myself I still don't understand while other
developers do it such way ;-)

We could name such valuable docs here and then ask their authors
to publish them in gEDA wiki instead of their own sites.

-- 
  Vladimir