NAME

       xgsch2pcb - gEDA/gaf gschem -> PCB workflow GUI

SYNOPSIS

       xgsch2pcb [project]

DESCRIPTION

       When designing a printed circuit board (PCB) it's often desirable to create a 'schematic' which shows the
       components  to  be  used  and their connectivity in an abstract fashion.  The connectivity information is
       then used to help when designing the actual circuit board.

       gsch2pcb is a command-line tool, part of the gEDA suite, which is used  to  generate  and  update  a  PCB
       layout.   It works with schematics created by gschem, part of the gEDA suite, and layouts created by pcb,
       a PCB layout system commonly used with gEDA.

       xgsch2pcb provides an intuitive, user-friendly graphical interface to gsch2pcb.

       The main window is divided into three main areas:

       •  The toolbar at the top offers the usual options to quit the program  and  to  load  and  save  project
          files.

       •  The  left hand 'Schematic' frame shows a list of schematic pages that the PCB layout will be based on.
          The 'Edit schematic' and 'Edit attributes' buttons respectively launch gschem and gattrib to edit  the
          selected schematic page.

       •  The  right  hand  'Layout' pane shows the name of the PCB layout file associated with the project. The
          'Edit layout' button launches pcb to edit a file,  and  will  offer  to  update  your  PCB  layout  if
          necessary.  The  'Update  layout' button forces an update of the PCB layout even if one isn't strictly
          necessary.

       The update process will carry out the following actions to modify your layout,  after  launching  pcb  if
       isn't already running:

       1.  Remove any elements from the layout that are not in the schematic.

       2.  Find any elements that are in the schematic but not in the layout, and add them to the layout (in the
           top left corner). N.b. that it's probably a good idea to leave this corner of your layout clear until
           the  layout  is  more  or  less finalised, to avoid new elements interfering with elements which have
           already been placed and routed.

       3.  Clear your rats and load a new rats nest.

       4.  Update the component pin names to match the pin names on the schematic symbol.

       Note that the update process won't modify your PCB file on disk, and will take into account  any  changes
       you have made since you last saved.

                                                 02 January 2010                                    xgsch2pcb(1)