gEDA and PCB packages

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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby juergen_harms » Mar 3rd, '12, 09:56

Thank you.
Are entries for the programs supposed to appear in the KDE menu? I did not find any.

No, the structure of the packages is still that as it had been imported from Mandriva. I have my own KDE menu, which made me not realize this need - I agree that should be done.

Version freeze for Beta 2 will be in a few days. I am not sure whether I will manage until than (and I hesitate to touch things at the last moment). If not, a bug should be filed (could you do this?) when Mageia 2 is released, I will then produce an update. I will drop a note in this thread if I can do it in the next days.

PS: thinking about it - which menu items do you consider necessary (geda has a crowd of executables). I would suggest a minimum set: pcb, gschem, gerbv (but gerbv is rarely called directly, normally by clicking the directory item of a gerbv file), possibly gsch2pcb.

This makes me realise that I did not check about file-associations (mime types), they might also be lacking - again, obscured by having it set up manually on my system.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby morgano » Mar 3rd, '12, 12:17

Association works at least for schematic and symbols (file icon is correcct, and right program opens). Did not try board or gerber i think. For gerbv maybe associate its job file.
For what to include I do not know if there is a common control panel / project manager like in most other systems, like KiCad?
Gerbv is the only one of theese that i use; users who keep using other CAD would appreciate a direct link.
And where to put them... the tools sub-menu is cluttered with system tools... maybe tis sis considered graphic tools. Office tools absolutely, but commonly Office programs are just text and spreasheet...
I see that when i installed gEDA on mga1 it put items in Science>Other. Maybe just follow that.
But LibreCad put item in Graphics>more
Neither KiCad nor Eagle makes menu entries.
I do not feel any of all places i named here to be optimal - i wish there were a "Design" group for any technical as well as non-technical design tools.

I guess you can file a bug yourself if i forget.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby juergen_harms » Mar 3rd, '12, 18:28

If I understand right, there are 2 groupings of interest: the "group" configured in the spec file: it determines where the package is shown by the drak tools (MCC->). All packages (geda, gerbv, pcb) are in Science, the best place in the available choice, and I dont care. The other one is the category entry in the desktop file, it determines the sub-directory where the menu-item will appear in the desktop menu - far more important for the user.

The category in the tarball (I started working on geda) specifies a value that does not exist in Mageia. The closest supported category at present is graphics - I try to configure geda there. But I think what is needed, is a Science/Engineering category. Might be a good idea - once Mageia 2 is released - to relaunch the Science/Engineering discussion and see whether there is support for asking for such a category to be created (the existing group "Science" should then also be changed to "Science/Engineering".
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby morgano » Mar 3rd, '12, 22:24

I agree basically
But i think tat if you put it under under Science in drak* then put it under science > other in the menu (like it installed for me on mga1)
Then it is like original gEDA i presume.

But personally i prefer to have it under graphic in both places, like libreoffice is.
(At least on mga1 i here see a Graphic cathegory in drakrpm.)
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby mailedfist » Dec 29th, '12, 01:20

I too do not see any entries in the KDE menu. It would seem to make sense if they were to appear somewhere under "Development".
Mandrake->Mandriva->Mageia starting in 2003. I really dislike another well-known distro starting with U.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby juergen_harms » Dec 29th, '12, 13:11

At present, the geda packages (and also pcb) are (at least should be) in "Sciences" - there appears to be some kind of consensus that they belong there (and I recently fixed a bug in cauldron to make all these packages respect this strategy).

I maintain my opinion: the real problem is the structure of the desktop menu: it is far from what a user with a science or engineering profile needs. As long as nothing happens to the "official structure" of the desktop menu, the best solution is to forget the official grouping and create a home-made submenu with a structure that corresponds to your needs - the Unix approach :roll:

By the way: there now exist quite up-to-date stable releases for the geda tools, they are in cauldron. A new stable upstream release of pcb is also being prepared, but I have doubts whether it will be available before Mageia 3 is finalized.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby mailedfist » Jan 2nd, '13, 13:07

I'm not using Cauldron but am using Mageia online to get regular updates. The geda items do not appear under Sciences->Other. I'll access them by other means for now (just giving them a try - was using Electric).

I disagree about the menu. Given that Eclipse and KDevelop, which are software engineering tools, go under the "Development" menu, it is not logical to place hardware engineering tools under "Sciences". It could be argued that "Development" should be "Engineering", but is no big deal as engineers develop things.
We have widgets and other things a-plenty to customise desktops - the menu should be standard and intuitive to most users. The official grouping is, in not just my view, intuitive for the majority for at least 90% of items. As you say, someone can add a sub-menu with the things they use regularly in it, but the official grouping needs to make it easy to find things which they don't use regularly.

There will always be some overlap (e.g. the same tool may be used by a pure physicist and an engineer - does it go under sciences or development) but, in my view, the menu should go for the majority - and most users of CAD are engineers rather than scientists.
Mandrake->Mandriva->Mageia starting in 2003. I really dislike another well-known distro starting with U.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby doktor5000 » Jan 2nd, '13, 23:25

FWIW, menu entries also partly depend on the used desktop environment. It may be helpful to run desktop-file-validate on
the .desktop files which the packages in question currently contain on your system.

For the menu structure itself, Mageia adheres to the freedesktop menu standards: http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-s ... t/apa.html
Which says f.ex.:
Additional Categories wrote:Engineering Engineering software, e.g. CAD programs

so geda/pcb should probably be changed regarding the .desktop files IIUC.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby juergen_harms » Jan 3rd, '13, 18:05

I am extremely reluctant to try to tackle this problem under the heading of pcb and gEDA applications - it is more general. If I simply react to "voices expressed", at present there would be a majority for "science" regarding purely geda and pcb. But I insist: this is a problem of tidying up the ranging of applications. At present, there are already 3 classifications": (1) the one that appears in the "Group" category of the spec files, (2) what appears in the "Categories" clause of the .desktop file specified in the spec file and (3) what effectively appears in the gnome or kde desktop menu provided by Mageia. (1) and (2) respect standards (but which probably have little impact on what the user sees), for (3) I have seen several long discussions with the outcome that "things should be made easy for the non-specialist user" (personally I dont understand the mapping between this concept and what I see in the KDE menu).

Question to the moderators: how and where is this best discussed?
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby isadora » Jan 3rd, '13, 18:51

juergen_harms wrote:.........................

Question to the moderators: how and where is this best discussed?


I agree, a new thread concerning "ranging of applications" would be appropriate.
Therefore i suggest you, opening a new topic in the "Ideas and suggestions"-sub-forum.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby doktor5000 » Jan 3rd, '13, 21:23

Well, i'd say just a new thread in this subforum, as this is a packaging topic.
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Re: gEDA and PCB packages

Postby isadora » Jan 3rd, '13, 21:37

Okay for me. ;)
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