kicad-libs and sharing things across projects

Werner Almesberger werner at openmoko.org
Thu Sep 2 09:49:33 EDT 2010


Yesterday, I added a project called kicad-libs. This is intended
as a place where we can collect and share components (symbols) and
modules (footprints) for KiCad.

To get things off the ground, I put the following footprints there:

- stdpass.fpd: small passive components, 0201, 0402, etc.

- usd-card.fpd: micro-SD card footprint, based on measurements and
  the high-resolution scan Rikard Lindstrom made.

Right now, only ben-blinkenlights uses things provided by kicad-libs,
but I'll migrate more things later.

For accessing files in kicad-libs in a portable way, I propose the
following policy:

- check out kicad-libs and the project(s) using things from there
  both under the same directory. E.g., you may have a /home/qihw
  for all things related to Qi Hardware, kicad-libs would be at
  /home/qihw/kicad-libs/, and ben-blinkenlights would be at
  /home/qihw/ben-blinkenlights/

- use relative paths for libraries in KiCad's profile. This may/will
  require manual editing of the .pro file. Example:
  LibName1=../kicad-libs/modules/stdpass

This way, other people can check out these projects anywhere in their
directory hierarchy and all the paths still work.

kicad-libs still needs some editing and review guidelines and policy.
E.g., we have to be very careful about not making changes that break
other people's designs, and anyone using items in kicad-libs should
have a means to determine how much they can be trusted.

But let's do this one step at a time. Do the general idea of having
one place to keep things and my directory placement concept sound
reasonable ?

- Werner




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