gEDA-dev: In which HID would a PCB preview live?

[Peter Clifton]

Dear PCB folks,

I was wondering where in PCB's hid system would be best to put a
"preview" gui. This (I'd imagine) would take the form of a simple
toplevel window which shows a symbol (or layout) passed to it zoomed to
extents.

The invoking application could either parent / embed that window, or
instruct PCB how it should be shown. I am thinking about how we might
call it from gschem to preview footprints (say).

It seems to fit quite well as a gui hid, but IIRC you can't have more
than one in PCB at once - so that doesn't quite work. I wondered about
an exporter - but we'd not want it to show up in the standard export
options, and it might conflict with a running gui.

I guess one way would be to teach - with an action (say GTK hid's)
library window to preview, then have a way of invoking PCB which _just_
shows that window and the preview, and returns the correct "...." in
"footprint=...." for gschem.

On a slightly more major design change font.. a "libpcb" could be handy
here, allowing a separate application for the library window - which is
actually called by PCB its-self, that could also be called by gschem.
I'm not volunteering to do that, as I've not the time nor intimate
knowledge of PCB to do so.

Anyway, just some thoughts,

Regards,

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)