Re: gEDA-dev: gEDA + libglade

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2-at-NOSPAMcam_dot_ac_dot_uk>]

> So, libgeda is the best place to work on... to help geda-dev community?
> 
> Do you have any points what should be rewritten ??

There isn't anything specifically which needs simply re-writing, but we
are working on re-structuring certain parts.

There is an ongoing effort to rationalise the API, stripping out
redundant code, simplifying its operation, and re-organising the
data-structures. I can't really put my finger on one particular task, as
there is a lot of thinking and design discussion which needs to happen
first.

There are lots of tasks to do though.


If you are interested in coding GUI stuff, it would be nice to
rationalise the way toolbars are presented in gschem. Menus are already
defined by reading pragmatically (they are constructed as the scheme
config files are read in), however the toolbars are hard-coded.

There is a benefit from being able to specify customised toolbars,
icons, tooltip text etc.., so users can choose different toolbars with
common tasks (just like we can define keyboard shortcuts). It might be
useful to be able to drop graphic primitives onto a toolbar too, in
addition to having them in menus.


Another idea - perhaps related, perhaps not, is an API for docking
windows as side-panes. Say, for example we might want to dock the
component-selector (or a modified version), along one side of the main
window. There is code which can do this which you might consider in
"Anjuta", and "The GIMP". We might want to construct customisable
palettes of frequently used components. Flexibility is the main key for
gEDA - so many people want to do things differently.



Are you interested in graphing data, and / or spice simulation?

Whilst a bit tangential to libgeda + gschem, one of the main barriers
which stops gEDA being used in Universities, is the lack of nice
integration. Whilst this doesn't bother many gEDA users, it does stop
its more wide-spread adoption - and everyone would benefit from its
improvement.

How about coming up with a more stream-lined way for presenting
(graphing) data output from circuit simulators such as gnucap and
ng-spice.

There is the old "gwave" program, which is written using scheme and GTK,
but the library it uses is basically dead - the entire GUI would need
re-writing (libglade?).

Perhaps more usefully, you could work on extending GTKWave (primarily a
digital waveform viewer, but it does support analog representations).
We'd need to write code to read the appropriate data-formats, and there
is also some scope for usability enhancements generally in the
interface. This would give us a unified waveform viewer for analog and
digital simulation - something the project could really benefit from.

Again, these are just a few ideas.

The Summer of code suggested projects page has many others.

Regards,

Peter Clifton




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