HAM Radio 1/HamRadio.cdr/tech/droege/howto.doc

Text File | 1986-10-14 | 9KB | 241 lines

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HOWTO.DOC


This section explains "how to" do some things that may not be obvious and that
we have found from experience that you may want to do.  We will respond to "How
can I" letters by adding sections here.  We have not filled in everything for
which we have made a heading.  We are tired of writing.  Your letters will
provide inspiration.


HOW TO REPLACE A JOB SYMBOL WITH A LIBRARY SYMBOL

Jobs must be loaded before libraries.  You can only load one job.  The first
symbol in memory wins, following symbols with the same name are ignored.  So,
here is how to replace a symbol with a new version in a library:

1. Load job with its old symbol.

2. Open the symbol and rename it to a different unused name.  This is done by
   the MODSYM key followed by the RENAME after the symbol redraws.

3. Now load the library with the new symbol.

4. Reopen the symbol as in 2. above and use REPLAC to replace the renamed
   symbol with the new version.  The old temporary symbol may now be KILLed.

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE THE SETUP ARRAY FILE

We all find it very tedious to work with the setup array file.  If you list it
(2,5), you will see that it fills two pages and contains 768 entries.  You will
really want to keep a listing nearby.  We plan someday to include an edit
procedure.  This will be reasonable to do when we support the EGA (soon in the
pay version).  Be comforted that while it is a pain to set up, you don't have
to do it very often.  Once you edit it, the setup data is saved with your job.
(you can read it if you want by listing JOBNAME.PCD)

You will find 4SETUP on many menus.  Pressing this key gives you the choice of
editing the setup, the level within that setup, and the color and aperture
attached to that level.  In general, once you select the type of object to work
on, you move through the table with the UP/DOWN keys.  Note that this menu
differs from others in that the position number is not shown on the keys,
however, the new table line is shown at the top of the screen.

It is important to remember that EDSET and EDLEVL only select a table line
while EDCOLR and EDAPER change it.  We cannot imagine changing this table
without a listing in front of us.  We find that we seldom work with more than
two or three line widths on a job.  We thus use a separate setup for each line
width and each level where we are entering data.  Sixteen has been more than
enough.  Sixteen was selected as the most we could get on two listing pages,
eight having been found to be too few.   This leaves us extra setups which we
preset to show only a single level at a time, reserving one for special work.

HOW TO USE VARSYM

Varsym treats any symbol you have created just like a label.  You can thus
rotate it, scale it, and draw it with any aperture and on any level.  Not much
use for printed circuits, but fine for mechanical drawings where you want to
create an item like a screw, then place it scaled.
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HOW TO MOVE AROUND THE WORK SPACE
    ARROW, SPEED, FAST/SLOW

If enough people complain, we will provide a mouse input.  But honestly, folks,
we find we just don't need it.  We also wish to keep the hardware requirements
to the absolute minimum.  We work with the left hand on the function keys, and
the right hand on the keypad.  Normal movements are done with the arrow keys
with occasional use of KP5 to get some place in a hurry.  This poses a problem
for how to drink our coffee,  but leaning back and relaxing while we drink it
gets the job done faster, we think.  We use F6 to set the cursor movement to
match the particular data type.  We arrange our lines so they fit on the
current grid, for digital this is often 15 mil lines on a 25 mil grid spacing
which makes an easy board to etch.  This we would do with the movement set at
25 mil steps.  for laying out IC pads we would use F6 to set 100 mil steps.
When it takes a while to get some place we often don't use the speed up key but
just let our minds wander.  Some times we gain an insight which makes the job
go faster.  All this is a personal viewpoint, but several of us have found that
this system is less stressful than others we have used.  Of course we each can
afford to have our own on our desk now, which beats signing up for the big
system in the CAD room in the sky.  Still, having a slow moving cursor can be
relaxing if you allow it.

HOW TO WORK WITH SYMBOLS, OR WHERE IS THE JOB ANYWAY?

A symbol is a collection of work that can displayed, saved, etc..  We are
afraid that our experience with Gerber CAD systems shows.  In the Gerber system
we have used, most information was entered into something called the "job".
You could make symbols, but symbols could not be entered into symbols (at least
they did not maintain their identity).  We saw the symbols as potentially
powerful tools, but were frustrated by not being able to nest (call symbols
from symbols) them.  Thus when we wrote this program we carried over the
concept of a job, as being the place where data was stored.

We find that we do not put anything into the job until we have completed our
work.  We create our entire project as a symbol.  It of course, contains other
symbols which are job pieces.  See the DEMO for an example.  Because of our
earlier experience, we called the job the thing that you create a plot file
from.  We could have as easily generated the plot file from a symbol, but
that's not the way we did it.

So when we have completed our work, we go to the nice clean unused job, and
locate one symbol (where we did all our work) at 0,0.  Then we go to the plot
menu and create our output plot file.


HOW TO BACKUP YOUR JOB

        SAVJOB

        SAVJOB saves everything just like it is.  You are asked for a name and
        two files are created, "NAME.PCD" and "NAME.PCS".  NAME.PCS contains
        all the working conditions, NAME.PCS contains all the symbols found in
        the job plus an special symbol which contains the job data.  Later when
        you load these files as a job you are restored to the same status as
        you left.

        SAVLIB

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        SAVLIB saves only the job symbols as "NAME.LIB".  If you make your job
        a symbol (as we recommend) then there is little difference between
        SAVJOB and SAVLIB except SAVJOB preserves you setup conditions where
        SAVLIB will take them from the SETUP file.

        LIBSYM

        LIBSYM allows saving a single symbol as a library.  See the key
        sequence in QUICK and the LIBSYM command.

HOW TO CREATE A SPECIALIZED LIBRARY

To create a specialized library, like one of electronic symbols, we save each
symbol as a separate library using the LIBSYM command.  We then open a fresh
job and load each symbol that we want.  We then save this as a library with an
appropriate name.  Note that the system is smart enough to ignore repeated
symbols.  Thus if you load IC14 which contains PAD as a sub symbol, then load
IC16 which uses PAD, the second pad is not loaded.  You must thus be careful to
name symbols distinctly.  The first symbol in memory stays, subsequent calls to
the same symbol are ignored.  See HOW TO REPLACE A JOB SYMBOL ... above for a
way to update a symbol.

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE LABELS

HOW TO STITCH

HOW TO SET UP REDRAWS

HOW TO MAKE PADS IF YOU ONLY HAVE A PEN PLOTTER

HOW TO START WITH YOUR OWN CUSTOM SETUP

First, make sure you have backup copies of SETUP.PCS, and SETUP.PCD.  Start
without loading a job.  You may then load as many symbol libraries as you wish.
Edit the setup arrays and the redraw tables as you wish.  Now save your work as
the job "SETUP".  Examination of the disk directory will reveal that there is a
new SETUP.PCS and SETUP.PCD pair replacing the old ones.  Be sure first that
you have kept a clean copy of the original SETUP files as it will be very hard
to clean out the junk you are about to add if you later decide that you don't
want it.  Now if you start DROEGE from a disk containing this new SETUP file
pair you will have all the symbols and setups that you have prepared.  You can
even save things like a drawing outline and title block if you enter them
before saving SETUP.
















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