gEDA-user: Design Flow Roadmap starting point

[C P Tarun]

> > 3.  There should be native support for elongated vias (they
> >     are called "pads" in Eagle) when defining an element.
>
> The way to do this in pcb is to put a pin and a pad in the same place.
> The pin gives you the drill hole, and the pad defines the elongated
> copper shape.

Yes, I've tried this with my footprints. The problem is that you need two
pads (for a traditional double-layer footprint) and you need to edit the
text file of the element to set the numbering of the pads. (Can I set the
pad number through the GUI of PCB the way I can for the pin number
by pressing 'n'?) This approach is error-prone, I felt. When I open up
the text file of the element, I see a list of pads but I don't know which
two pads are associated with pin 1, and so on.

> It's not heated, it's just nobody has had the time to do it right,
> yet.  For example, a true "multipin" (my name) would need to know more
> about the physical layer stack than pcb currently knows.  But I do
> envision a "multipin" having the ability to independently specify:
>
> * top, inner, and bottom shapes
>
> * copper shapes, including hole-to-edge distance and radius of each
>   corner
>
> * pads defined by polygons
>
> * copper, paste, and mask each independently defined
>
> The current plan is to defer this until after the "layer type flags"
> project is done, as that project gives us proper mask, paste, etc
> layers.

Yes, I've been reading some of the discussions about the "multipin" and
the layer-type projects, and I got the sense that these would make a lot
of the work easier for elongated pads. I think it's a good idea to do it in
the sequence you intend. Will make the implementation a whole lot
cleaner and more powerful internally.

Tarun
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