gEDA: 19990829 development snapshots released

[Ales Hvezda <ahvezda-at-NOSPAMseul_dot_org>]

Hi All,

	Here's the real 19990829 announcement. 

FILES

  Makefile    			3 Kb    Tue Aug  3 23:58:00 1999 
  gnetlist-19990829.tar.gz      166 Kb  Sun Aug 29 22:04:00 1999 
  gschem-19990829.tar.gz        301 Kb  Sun Aug 29 22:04:00 1999 
  libgeda-19990829.tar.gz       206 Kb  Sun Aug 29 22:04:00 1999 
  symbols-19990829.tar.gz       136 Kb  Sun Aug 29 22:05:00 1999 
  utils-19990829.tar.gz         73 Kb   Sun Aug 29 22:05:00 1999 


LOCATIONS

        http://www.geda.seul.org/devel.html

        http://www.geda.seul.org/devel/19990829/
	http://www.geda.coelacanth.com/devel/19990829/
	http://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/geda/devel/19990829/

        ftp://ftp.geda.seul.org/pub/geda/devel/19990829/
        ftp://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/pub/geda/devel/19990829/


REQUIRED PACKAGES
        
        GLIB 1.2.x      (http://www.geda.seul.org/dist)
        GTK 1.2.x       (http://www.geda.seul.org/dist)
        GUILE 1.3       (http://www.geda.seul.org/dist)


OPTIONAL PACKAGES

        LibStroke 0.3   (http://www.geda.seul.org/dist)
        libgdgeda 1.6   (http://www.geda.seul.org/devel/support)
        zlib 1.1.x      (http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib)

        zlib is only required if you install libgdgeda.  Most GNU/Linux 
        systems have a libz installed (which is zlib)

        It is important to install the above required packages (and/or
        optional packages) before you try to configure and build this 
	gEDA snapshot.


BUILD INSTRUCTIONS

        There are two ways to build these snapshots:

        1) Grab all the files listed above including the Makefile
           Untar all the files in the same directory
	   Edit the toplevel makefile: set the install prefix 
           The default install prefix is ${HOME}/geda
           And at the toplevel type:  make install

                        or

        2) Grab all the files listed above      
           Untar all the file.
	   Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to where you are going to install the libraries
	   Set PATH to where you are going to install the binaries.
           Go into each directory and type:
                ./configure             [ --prefix=... if you want to install
                                          somewhere else ]
                make 
                make install
        
           If you go this route you must build and install the packages
           in the following order:

                1. libgeda
                2. symbols
                3. gschem
                4. gnetlist
                5. utils

        Please don't mix devel snapshots.  Doing so is totally unsupported
        and may or may not work.

	If you use my toplevel Makefile, you should just be able to type
	make and everything should build without errors.  If it doesn't
	work, please send me an e-mail describing the error(s).


WHAT'S NEW

	libgeda
		Math/coord function speedup 

		libgdgeda 1.6 now supported

		Changed how new objects are created.  This change should 
		speed things up a little bit.  Removed the old 
		inefficient system of object creation 

		Added support functions for the net consolidate code 
		(see below)

		Added bus primitive object and added bus support to all other
		object related operations

		Added Toplevel attribute searching support functions

		Added support functions for manual/crude net stretching

		First release of libgeda which supports WinNT (not complete
		yet)

		Upgraded to libtool 1.3.3

		The usual misc bug fixes.  A few fairly critical hidden 
		ancient bugs fixed 

	gschem
		Bunch of code cleanup by Kazu Hirata (many thanks to him
		for doing this!)
	
		Text drawing speed improvements
			A single line is drawn for text when you cannot
			read it.  The rc keywords to support this are
			text-feedback and text-display-zoomfactor

		Zoom in and zoom out now center the display where the 
		mouse pointer points.  Only works when you use the hotkeys
		(z or Shift-z or zi or zo)

		Added Edit/Stretch which lets you manually stretch nets.
		Basically select a single net, then select Edit/Stretch
		(or hit the hotkeys "e h"), move the mouse and pick the
		final spot.  It's very crude but works.

		Support for libgdgeda 1.6 which no longer outputs gifs but
		instead outputs PNG files.

		Added a mode which basically takes net segments which
		can be combined and creates a single new net segment.
		This net consolidation is controlled through the
		net-consolidation rc keyword.  The default is off since
		support is so new and there are few bugs.

		First release of gschem which supports WinNT (not complete 
		yet or ready for use)

		Added support for the bus primitive object 
			Highly preliminary support, so there may be quite
			a few bugs/unpolished behavior.  Bus support is
			far from complete; it's nothing but a visual 
			construct.

		Added an rc file called output-capstyle which controls what
		the capstyle is for postscript output.  (setlinecap in the
		postscript output suggested by Reinhard Kotucha) 

		Upgraded to libtool 1.3.3 

		Fixed a few core dumping bugs

	gnetlist (doesn't support buses yet)
		Added support for the toplevel attribute searching

		Integrated Mike Jarabek's latest Verilog backend

		Integrated Matt Ettus's Bill of Material code 

		Upgraded to libtool 1.3.3	

	utils	
		First release of the utils in the new separate development
		scheme of releases.

NOTES

	Lots of code changed, so please let me know if you see something
	that looks wrong.  Most of the new stuff is really new, so there
	will be bugs. :(

	I've already found some aesthetic bugs, which I'll fix in the next
	release.  If you find some bugs, let me know.

        Again, any testing and feedback is greatly appreciated.


                                                                -Ales