Release notes for the gEDA/gaf 20060824 snapshot

libgeda/gschem
• Updated libgeda's so version to 26:0:0.
• Fixed the infamous "slice" memory problem that was plaguing gEDA/gaf for a while. Mixing malloc/free and g_malloc/g_free is a bad idea and also setting a field in deallocated memory tends to upset glib's memory management.
• Added a new rc variable called "always-promote-attributes" that takes a string of attribute names that are automatically prompted when a component is placed on a schematic. The default list is: "footprint device value model-name".
• Newly rewritten postscript output to be much more compact, sane. and support unicode (Mike Jarabek).
• gschem now uses stock gtk+ icons if they are available (Tomaz Solc).
• Improved the robustness of the loading of symbols/schmeatics (Tomaz Solc).
• Added support for panning using the middle mouse button and controlling the amount of pan (Peter Clifton).
• Changed the default behavior of the middle button (now mouse pan).
• Added cursor key panning in gschem and rc keywords for controling the amount of pan (Tomaz Solc).
• Added the ability to zoom in and zoom out using the mouse wheel (Peter Clifton).
• Added a bunch of new hooks to gschem and libgeda. This supports various new features such as auto pin attributes, auto attribute placing (currently commented out), select_component_hook, select_net_hook, deselect_component_hook, deselect_net_hook, deselect_all (Carlos Nieves Onega and Dan McMahill).
• Added support for dragging an object using the first mouse button in gschem (Carlos Nieves Onega).
• Added the beginnings of pcb mode to gschem (Dan McMahill).
• Improvements to the autosave and backup mechanism (Carlos Nieves Onega).
• Added support for text overbars. The delimiter character is \_ (it should be at the beginning and end of the where you want the overbar to be (Carlos Nieves Onega). Postscript output support for overbars (Mike Jarabek).
• Bug fixes to the auto save mechanism (Carlos Nieves Onega). Please report any more crashes.
• Fixed component update to work correctly since it was looking for existing attributes in the wrong places.
• Converted all the noweb code to just plain C (making sure that all the really nice documentation that Patrick and others is perserved). gEDA/gaf no longer requires noweb to build (Jason Childs).
• Removed all pre-GTK 2.x code from gEDA/gaf (Peter Brett).
• Translation updates from various people.

gnetlist

• DRC2 backend bug fixes and improvements (Carlos Nieves Onega).
• Various bug fixes (Werner Hoch and others).

gattrib

• Fixed annoying bug in which gattrib soaked up 70% of processor time (Stuart Brorson).
• Implemented ability to export CSV file of component sheet (Stuart Brorson).
• Made cell text different colors depending upon attribute visibility (Stuart Brorson).
• Applied patch to handle attrib strings with multiple = signs (Stuart Brorson and Jeff Mallatt).
• Misc bug fixes (Stuart Brorson).

symbols

• Many symbol bug fixes and improvements (Werner Hoch and others).
• Improved the NC symbols so that the drc2 backend handles no connect situarions better (Carlos Nieves Onega).

gsymcheck

• Various bug fixes and improvements (Carlos Nieves Onega and others).

utils

• gsch2pcb improvements dealing with how to find gnetlist executable.
• Updated to the latest version of grenum (Levente Kovacs).
• Applied power pin handling patch (Patrick Doyle).

docs

• Obsoleted all latex documentation and replaced it with a snaphot of the gEDA wiki. Many thanks to David Hart for the conversion and necessary support to make this conversion possible.

examples

• No significant changes.

misc

• The geda (gManager) source tarball is not longer being distributed. All the code is still in the CVS repository, but due to lack of maintanance, it has been pulled for these snapshot releases.
• Fixed various Makefiles to support make distcheck again.
• Lots of bug fixes by (Werner Hoch, Carlos Nieves Onega, and many others).



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/devel/20060824 (USA)
• http://ftp.sunet.se/geda/devel/20060824 (Europe)

Required Libraries/Programs

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

Required libraries:

• gtk+ ≥ 2.4.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