Re: gEDA-dev: Pinning down libgeda

[Dan McMahill <dan-at-NOSPAMmcmahill_dot_net>]

al davis wrote:
> On Thursday 22 February 2007 18:47, Peter Clifton wrote:
>> Interactive gnucap schematic front-end and probing toolkit
>> anyone? Make it "friendly" like PSpice to allow the mass
>> PSpice user migration to quality free tools.
> 
> Gnucap now supports plugins in the development snapshot.  The 
> others should too.  Then features can be contributed by many 
> without making a mess out of the core.  For now, there are some 
> growing pains, but I see tremendous power with the system.
> 
> Gschem needs three things to make this happen.
> 
> 1. The ability to have a user defined menu, that can pass 
> messages to another program.

This sort of exists now.  I got part way into implementing a pcb mode 
for gschem which is all contained in a standalone scheme file that you 
simply load in your gschemrc.  I was able to demonstrate cross probing 
where you click on a schematic instance and pcb would respond by 
selecting the corresponding layout instance.  I'm sure some of that code 
has rotted by now though.  As part of that work, I created some scheme 
functions that let you do things like bring up a message dialog or a 
file select dialog.

> 2.  The ability for an external program change attributes by 
> sending a message, and for these changes to show immediately if 
> that attribute is visible.

as far as I know, this does not exist.

> 3. The netlister must work, 100%.  You should not need to 
> explicitly run it separately.  How about an "export" in the 
> file menu, like word processors make pdf?

That can pretty much be implemented now, but someone needs to do it.

> But this is for a look-alike transition.  Having the simulator 
> commands/menu separate from the schematic is not a problem.

Something left off of this list which I think is important is that in 
the current system, nets don't have names in gschem unless you name them 
explicitly.  The unnamed nets get assigned names at netlist time by 
gnetlist.  This makes it a bit of a pain I think to then use the 
schematic to drive a waveform viewer.  In other words, how can I click 
on a net and press "plot it" if the schematic tool doesn't know what 
that net is called in the netlist (and hence in the simulator output).


> On the side ...  
> 
> Look at a gschem schematic, and a PSpice schematic, side by 
> side.
> 
> Now look at a Multisim schematic and a gschem schematic, side by 
> side.

not having pspice or multisim, what would I see?

-Dan




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