Release notes for the gEDA/gaf 20060123 snapshot

Overview
• gschem now writes backup files schematics and does autosaving of modified schematics.
• gschem now supports embedded pictures in a similar fashion as embedded components.
• gschem has new file load/save dialog boxes when running gtk+ 2.4.x.
• gschem now supports doing PNG export without depending on libgdgeda. libgdgeda is still supported and will stick around for a little bit longer.
• gschem now has "L" net drawing support. Pressing the Shift key while drawing a net switches the orientation of the current net. "L" net drawing terminates when an existing connection point is found.
• Bunch of symbol improvements and bug fixes.

libgeda

• Bumped shared library version to 25.
• Werner fixed the color background postscript bug.
• Carlos added support for embedded pictures.
• Carlos added support for the saving of backup copies and autosaving schematics every "interval" seconds along with various bug fixes.
• Werner integrated the "L" net drawing support functions into libgeda. Ales modified support functions to add auto net drawing termination when a valid connection point is found.
• Misc build, compiler, and bug fixes by various people.

gschem

• Werner integrated David Carr's "L" net drawing code. Ales added code to search for connection points which terminate the drawing. While drawing net and a valid connection point is found such as a net, pin, or bus, the connecting net segment will be finished (and drawn) and a brand new "L" net segment will start from that found connection point.
• Carlos added a PNG export which does not use libgdgeda. Both export mechanism still work (although only one at a time selected at compile time), however, I will remove libgdgeda support at some point.
• Carlos changed the existing file selection dialogs to use gtk_file_chooser. These new dialog boxes are only available if you build gschem using gtk+ 2.4.x or higher. These file selection dialog boxes do not have a preview window. The preview window will be added back in a subsequent release. If gschem detects that an autosave backup exists, then gschem asks the user what to do.
• Carlos added code to write a backup file whenever a schematic is changed and saved. Carlos also added code which autosaves the schematic every "interval" seconds. In reality, the autosave happens only when there is a change in the schematic and there was a timeout of the autosave timer.
• Many updates to the various translations by various people.
• Many bug fixes by various people. See the ChangeLog for detailed information.

gnetlist

• Stuart a integrated a patch to spice-sdb to support the netlisting of Josephson junctions and other magnetic devices.
• Stuart modified a bunch of backends to fix the "unconnected_pin-" bug reported by John Doty. Stuart also fixed the refdes sorting problem also report by John Doty.
• Various drc2 backend improvements by Carlos

gattrib

• No significant changes

gsymcheck

• No significant changes

symbols

• Many symbol improvements by Werner, Carlos, and Stuart.

geda (gManager)

• No significant changes

utils

• Various tragesym improvements by Werner Hoch

docs

• Updated Bill Wilson's gsch2pcb tutorial to the latest version.
• Misc updates to various documents

examples

• No significant changes

For more a detailed changes, please look in the appropriate ChangeLogs in the source tarballs.

Notes/Bugs/Errata/Known Issues/Last Minute Issues

• I am still behind on applying patches and integrating contributed symbols. However, I am pleased to say that my mbox is slowly shrinking. :)
• Many thanks to everybody involved in this release. Thanks.
• As usual, send all bug reports and suggestions to the geda-dev or geda-user mailing lists. Thanks.

Download

• http://www.geda.seul.org/download.html (USA)
• http://ftp.sunet.se/geda/download.html (Europe)

Source Tarballs

md5sum	Name	Size
51fe3d01c190ecb1171ddd1f4d32c173	Makefile	32 KB
6642b79f7ccb193f6c7f4733d03ebf02	geda-20060123.tar.gz	396 KB
5c3b9eb72c33f171b576f16060820284	geda-docs-20060123.tar.gz	2820 KB
fcf52dfdc9161387d54145cf4ec9619a	geda-examples-20060123.tar.gz	244 KB
9b80848a7e746e127d9d2fc2a080b8cc	geda-gattrib-20060123.tar.gz	316 KB
b976e9dac5764844ae79892cfdc3d6a4	geda-gnetlist-20060123.tar.gz	320 KB
0fdae931cc2ca22611a1a5f8dc1ca690	geda-gschem-20060123.tar.gz	1620 KB
ee9d1662b40af471a0ff9e9ab94b9f85	geda-gsymcheck-20060123.tar.gz	136 KB
71e64ed7e680ed1bb47a68e2ffe1eea4	geda-symbols-20060123.tar.gz	668 KB
d4e76cd3fa4471ff9a4c1a293eb90379	geda-utils-20060123.tar.gz	260 KB
fa159b269c8c1d3d248dc39d4b70f366	libgeda-20060123.tar.gz	1028 KB
Total Size:		~7812 KB

Required Libraries/Programs

Most can be found at: http://www.geda.seul.org/dist

Required libraries:

• gtk+ ≥ 2.2.x (tested with 2.6.x).
  NOTE: gtk+ 1.2.x is no longer supported.
• guile ≥ 1.6.3 (tested with 1.6.7).
  NOTE: guile 1.4.x is no longer supported.

Required programs:

• pkg-config ≥ 0.15.0
  NOTE: You MUST install pkg-config regardless of gtk+ version.

Optional libraries:

• LibStroke ≥ 0.5.1
• libgdgeda ≥ 2.0.15
  NOTE: You MUST install 2.0.15, 2.0.9 and earlier versions will not work.
• zlib ≥ 1.1.x
• libpng ≥ 1.2.x

Packages/Binaries/Installers

• Debian packages for unstable can be found here or using apt-get.
• RPM packages for Fedora Core 4 can be found here.
• An updated gEDA Suite CD is currently being tested and will be uploaded soon.

Building/Installing/Running

There are several ways of building gEDA/gaf:

1. Download *all* the above files and the required libraries.
2. Build and install the required and optional libraries.
3. Untar all of the geda tar files in the same directory.
4. Set the prefix= variable in the Makefile
5. Run: make and set the specified variables (PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and PKG_CONFIG_PATH)
6. Run: make install
   This should complete with NO errors.
7. Run: gschem and select Help/Manual... for all available documentation.

   Before you run gschem, gnetlist, gattrib, or gsymcheck you will need to set those three environment variables, or add them to a shell startup file (.bashrc, or .bash_profile or .profile)

-OR-

1. Download all the above files and the required libraries.
2. Set the specified variables (PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and PKG_CONFIG_PATH) correctly to the place where you are installing everything.
3. Build and install the required and optional libraries.
4. Untar all of the geda tar files in the same directory.
5. Go into each directory and run:
   ./configure [ with --prefix=$HOME/geda if you wish ]
   make install

   You must build and install the packages in the following order:

   1. libgeda
   2. symbols
   3. gschem
   4. gnetlist
   5. gsymcheck
   6. gattrib
   7. geda
   8. utils
   9. docs
   10. examples