gEDA-dev: gschem feature request: derive a pcb search string from a selection

[Kai-Martin Knaak]

During placement it is essential to identify groups of neighbored  
components. At this point I usually have a thorough understanding of the 
corresponding schematic. It would be extremely useful to select a group 
of parts in gschem and transfer the selection to pcb. Protel98 could do 
this, and we used it a lot. While there is no complete back- or forward 
annotation present in geda, this feature could be achieved with the help 
of the find function. A special gschem tool could identify the refdeses 
of all parts the current selection contains. Subsequently, it would write 
a pcb search string to the copy-paste buffer of X11. The user could paste 
this string with a middle mouse button click into the find dialog of pcb. 
And presto, all the components of a local module are selected. Next, you 
do "disperse selected elements" and you are ready to do the final 
placement.

This would significantly improve the placement work flow.

---<(kaimartin)>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
http://lilalaser.de/blog