Colin D Bennett wrote: > First, I'll say that I am an advocate of lightweight symbols, and I > want to draw my schematic once, not having to delete and re-add > symbols when I decide to change a resistor from 0805 to 0603 > footprint;
Hmm, heavy symbols don't force you to do that. Footprint attributes are promoted by default. So you can double click the symbol and change the value of the footprint attribute. Footprints in the essential lib are visible, too. They can be clicked and changed directly. If all components are to be changed, this gets tedious. Unfortunately, there is no search&replace available in gschem. But you can do: sed -i s/footprint=0805/footprint=0603/ foobar.sch Any other text editor will of course also do. The helper application gattrib needs a bit more interaction. But it is still much more convenient than re-adding symbols. And then there is DJs CSV scripts. I heard, they mix quite nicely with makefiles. > or when I change a 2 row, 6 contact connector to a > single-row 6-contact connector; or most significantly when I change a > SOT-23 (3-lead SMT) transistor to a 4-lead package including a tab; Same as above, if pin names of the footprints are compatible. If they don't match, light symbols would create a hard time, too. I seem to have missed something important in your argument. > If gschem could > present the user with the list of possible footprints, then this > would be a decent way for new users to get started and would give > good flexibility too. In a way, it already does. The list of footprints is shown as inherited attribute in the attribute editor dialog. Unfortunately, these items cannot be selected for copy/paste. But you can read the list and type in the desired value at the footprint attribute. This is not only for newbies. Advances users like me, who still don't know all their footprints by heart may find a preselected list helpful. You are right, gschem presenting the list as options to choose from, would be the next step. In my dreams, this would be complemented with a preview and a way to select from the footprint library. This would mean, PCB is run as aservice to gschem -- heaven forbid! ;-) ---<)kaimartin(>--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: [email protected] http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 increasingly unhappy with moderation of geda-user _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
