KiPart: Another tool to create parts - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 07:01:19 pm
content: Hello.There's another tool to create KiCad parts, KiPart:http://kipart.readthedocs.org/en/latest/https://github.com/xesscorp/KiPartThere's many tools addressing KiCad shortcomings, it seems.I wonder if this makes KiCad developers think about future improvements and even considering the developers of these tools contribute their features to the main codebase in some way.Is this something to consider after the stable release?Regards.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 07:41:39 pm
content: I'd love to see something like that integrated post-release. libedit indeed sucks donkeys. Many, many donkeys.There's one developer, I think, who is actually planning on doing something like this.

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 08:00:10 pm
content: I've tried out KiPart, and it works perfectly. It's going to be a time saver - and a frustration prevention tool.There's not much joy in creating a pin-rich symbol with mouse keyboard dialogs mix.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 08:02:35 pm
content: Quote from: jancumps on August 16, 2015, 08:00:10 pmYoucanuse just the keyboard to speed it up, if you're clever - I've done 256-ball BGAs before that way and it wasn'ttoopainful. The key is to sort the pins by type - get the electrical and graphical type fields filled out and then just do all the pins of that type in a row. Use P to call up the box, type name, <tab>, type number, enter, arrow down, repeat.Not that that doesn't suck donkeys, but it sucks fewer than moving between keyboard and mouse repeatedly

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 08:41:16 pm
content: The two things that I find the nicest are thhat:1: Dave has done the clever part for us2: copy/paste all pin assignments from pdf datasheet to a spreadsheet works quite well in some cases. Half the work done.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 10:43:54 pm
content: I don't actually find it that bad to create library parts in KiCAD!Am I one of very little?Seems like a good tool though!

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2015, 11:45:37 pm
content: Quote from: Wilksey on August 16, 2015, 10:43:54 pmThere are many third party utilities around KiCad that provides extra features to the built-in available ones. Part creation and library management are some of them.I think that creativity could be integrated into the original tool and evenencouragethese developers to integrate these improvements into the main project.I know this isn't easy to do and managing a team isn't easy at all, even some coders are really good ones but arelone cowboys. Anyway, I suspect KiCad suffered of some form of cowboy coding that still has some residuals of it (at least the code comments seems to be translated from French to English, for example).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2015, 12:58:47 am
content: Quote from: c4757p on August 16, 2015, 08:02:35 pmThat sounds exactly how Orcad Capture works / how I use that. Once you get the hang of using the keyboard shortcuts programs work much faster. Creating a CSV file sounds like a lot more work (typing) to me.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2015, 01:02:38 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on August 17, 2015, 12:58:47 amNot if you have a ton of pins and can copy and paste them from the datasheet, or even better, if the manufacturerprovidesa CSV (both Altera and Xilinx do).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2015, 08:46:57 pm
content: Even then I usually like my own naming convention better (more descriptive).