Re: gEDA-dev: some suggestions

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2-at-NOSPAMcam_dot_ac_dot_uk>]

On Thu, 2006-12-14 at 16:22 +0100, Christian Viller Hansen wrote:
> Stuart Brorson wrote:
> > That's a good idea!  A separate utility which gives the user a GUI
> > allowing him to configure a local gafrc would be a nice addition to
> > the project!  My only thought is that it should dump the gafrc file
> > into the local director, instead of trying to overwrite the
> > system-gschemrc.  All the stuff in system-gschemrc is overrideable
> > with the local RC file anyway, and you don't want to override the
> > system config file on a multi-user system.
> 
> It could be kinda like pspice where you can "add local" or add to your 
> general settings - but that's actually a recipe for disaster on a 
> multiuser system...
> How about a "import settings from another project" button? The only 
> thing it needs to do is to give the user a directory selector and then 
> copy that gafrc to current project dir.
> I think the utility should be reachable from within gschem. Is that a 
> problem?

I'd concentrate on how you want to edit the file / options first, then
worry about integrating with gschem. It could require architectural
changes to force it to re-read config options on the fly without adding
too many hacks.

It sounds good, but to my mind, a gui for customising the ...rc files is
quite complicated, as they are basically programming language files -
and need not conform to much structure.

On the other hand, provided files to have some structure to them:

eg.

"""
; action-feedback-mode string
;
; Set the default action feedback mode (for copy/move/component place).
; Set to outline to get an outline of the selection. 
; Set to boundingbox to get a bounding box of the selection. 
; For a fast machines with fast video use outline (it looks good).
; For a slow machine use boundingbox; it is much faster.
; Comment out if you want the default mode.
;
(action-feedback-mode "outline")
;(action-feedback-mode "boundingbox")

"""

Each configurable thing is described in a block..

first is ";<space><title of parameter>"
sedond is ";"
third begins a block of description, each line begining with ";<space>"

Then, with no new lines between the above comment, and the statement, is
the defining statement. e.g. (action-feedback-mode "outline")
Also, there are often alternatives, beginning with ";" 

There are new lines between blocks.

If we were to mandate this formatting, it would be possible to extract a
list of options, long descriptions, and potential pre-defined
alternatives.

What do people think about this method of adapting the configuration?

Things like search paths may be different, and could require their own
syntax.

Perhaps they can be handled the same... instead of providing
alternatives (as suggested above), each line such as:

(action-feedback-mode "outline")
or
;(action-feedback-mode "boundingbox")

would be present in the config options list, with a tickbox for
commented, or not-commented.


Peter C.





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