gEDA-dev: Re: gEDA-user: [pcb] replacing footprints on a board

[DJ Delorie]

> We could use the code from the centroid file output to infer a
> rotation both for the old part and the new one.

I meant, the user interface for auto-rotating the buffer *before* it's
placed.  The pads won't always line up perfectly (think, replacing a
1005L with a 1005M) so the user needs to position it first.  But with
symmetrical parts, you don't know which pin is #1 before you paste it.
I found myself redesigning all my SMT caps to have rounded corners on
the silk on pin #1's end so I could tell which way was which before I
pasted.

> Does it maintain the pin names too (not just pin number)?  If not,
> those could be re-annotated from the schematic. (gnetlist -g
> pcbpins)

No, but no reason why it couldn't.  The code's in action.c where it
NotifyMode()'s for PASTEBUFFER.  I've got the old and new elements
right there, just copy what you need.  For some reason, the element
name doesn't always display on the screen after a swap, don't know
why.  It re-appears if you swap some other element, or save/load, so
it's something to do with the rtrees.

Might be easier to manipulate if we can somehow remove the element
from the board without deleting it or copying it to another buffer.
Then we can keep it around while we're copying stuff.