ASCII Circuits

Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, read the help text. Selected object can be selected and moved, copied or deleted. It doesn't make sense to rotate a group of objects.

Thanks for your comments Gary Richardson

I'm afraid I don't understand your problem with the scroll bars. There should be only one scroll bar - on the component listbox. Could you send me a screen shot?

Also,

Click on the square in the upper-right corner or drag an edge or corner.

Well, take a look at the component editor. I tried to make it very easy to create new component definitions. There is another file of components (JeroenComponents.txt) created by an early tester ; perhaps you will find something you like there.

Well, if you had read the help text you would know how to do that. Position the cursor, draw a bounding box with the left mouse button, click the right mouse button, select an operation (move, copy, delete), if move or copy selected, position the object(s) and click the LMB.

I find myself erasing and redoing sections when

Thanks for your comments Gary Richardson

You can download the source files and give it a try. I don't have access to Linux so I can't guarantee that it will work. I had one report that there was a problem but I don't know what it is. If you do find a problem please let me know, I'll be glad to try to correct it.

First of all, thanks for the program. It makes it possible to draw ascii schematics much more quickly than before. Posting schematics to sci.electronics.basics would be such a pain without it that I wouldn't do it. (Most people post the output of CAD programs to alt.binaries.schematics.electronic, but messages there don't get archived by google, and are much shorter lived than those posted to sci.electronics.basics)

As far as usability, its pretty good. With respect to Mr Richardson, I like it better than the python one he posted.

Here are my issues:

1) The arrangement of the scroll bars within the windows is a bit awkward. When the program starts up on my system, I always have a set of scroll bars, and then, inside that view, another set of scroll bars for the components. I'd prefer not to have those outer scroll bars at all, and have the program simply show the component scroll bar. Also, being able to resize the inner pane so I could view all the components at once would be nice.

More components would be nice; a zener diode picture is the main one I always seem to be missing. Not a big deal. There is a component editor in recent versions. I havn't played with it, but if one could add, save, export new components, that would be ideal.

Another thing, it would be really nice to be able to move sections of the schematic around; I find myself erasing and redoing sections when I 'paint myself into a corner'. Being able to easily move parts around with a selection cut and paste scheme would be great. The 'add/delete lines/columns' scheme isn't as nice as the cut/paste would be.

A final comment is that it would be nice if the program remembered window location, size, etc.

Again, thanks for the great program.

Regards, Bob Monsen

Hi Newsgroup, I'm the author from AACircuit (Andy's ASCII Circuit) and 3 years ago, I released the first version of it(formely known as "ASCII-PAINT").

now I read Gary Richardson's posting: >You might try my ascii schematic drawing program. I think you will find >it easier to use than Andy's and it has a few more features.

What do YOU think? Should I invest time for further development? What should I improve? Is it too difficult to use my program?

Best regards, Andy

I like it. One addition I'd like to see is this:

Widen the component editor screen a bit, and show the four component views on a plain background beside the grid. If I make a lot of changes, I find it a bit hard to track them in all the different-colored rectangles. As I make changes in the grid, they would appear on the plain background.

Thank you! A great program.

Well, Gary was forthright in announcing that he was initially interested in creating a Python version of your app. Competition is a Good Thing.

Personally, I find AACircuit easier to use.

One thing that would be a handy addition would be the ability to either (or both) shift-select or drag-select multiple objects which could then be moved or rotated as a group.

--
Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA

Grüß dich!

When I first saw it, I thought, "Now this works very nicely and it's not a complex or difficult program -- great implementation!" However, I didn't like the style of parts included, so I then set out to edit them (vielen dank for including that feature!) I might like a slightly larger space to work in for some parts, but I understand a need for some limit. I'm happy about the delete column and row and insert column and row features (even nicer might be to be able to select a region and then say 'CROP' to extract it and reset it to the upper left corner, but what is there already works acceptably.)

But it's a collection of small issues that keep me from using it. Partly, the wiring methods bug me and need 'patching' when I'm done. Partly, I have to enter text in a box before I can place it, rather than just clicking on a spot and then typing. Partly, it's the constant redraws and resulting flickering.

Frankly, I think I would use it as a tool if it supported a straight text typing mode where I could use the arrow keys and space bar and the like to move around and type in characters where I needed them. If that were present in the program it would be at least as good as any regular text editor and most likely better because of the specialized features. But as it is, in some ways it is worse than having a simple text editor. Enough so that I don't use it. (I have used your program to paste in a schematic in which I needed to trim off excess left side spaces and where simple editors don't do that for me.)

But it's close. That's just my opinion and not particularly well thought out as I figured a sooner opinion might be better than a later one.

Jon

It would be nice to have a linux version. But it does work OK using wine (a windows api for linux), so not a great problem.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

Jonathan Kirwan schrieb:

Okay, I'll improve the move/crop/paste commands

Just click on "Editor" left of the "Text Box" and click on the paint Box. A blue cursor appears which you can move with cursors usw.

Which line draw do you use ? The "magline" ?

Thank you Jon Andy

Randy Day schrieb:

Okay, I'll improve this. Could you send me your symbol-list? component2.ini if you selected english. Thanks, Andy

[snip]

Done. I can't post the file as an attachment, but I included it below.

Oh, yeah, I found a couple of quirks in the symbol editor; if I press left-parenthesis '(' the editing rectangle shifts right and down instead of just right. When I press '>' the editor moves to the next SET of symbols in the list. They're not big issues, but they were a couple of those 'WTF?' moments! ;)

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Ah.. Never knew. That might do it, then. I'll try it out some more.

I have been using the other four line types. Didn't like them. The magline seems much better, I must admit (didn't use that one, either.)

Thanks for the suggestions and I'll see how that goes.

I still wish the display area redraws could be reduced to smaller regions so they'd not flicker things so much, but the 'editor' is handy and the magline is better than the other line styles. Thanks for pointing them out to me!

Jon

A very handy feature is a rubber command that allows you to put a fence around a section, and move the fence while stretching the interconnections that pass through the fence without distorting any of the component symbols that happen to cross the fence (they either move or stay, depending on whether their grab point is inside or outside the fence). This allows a quick and sloppy build followed by a clean up to straighten out and untangle the interconnections. It also makes adding or deleting components much prettier. This change requires that building any components includes defining their grab point.

--
John Popelish

Unless I've completely lost the plot, I think Bob was replying to Andreas, not to you!

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

Although I recognise the advantages of ASCII, I use it very infrequently. I prefer to draw proper schematics in CircuitMaker and post them to a web page and/or alt.binaries.schematics.electronic.On those occasions when I do try my hand, I've found it extremely usaeful. No way would I go back to 'rolling my own'!

Some improvements might be

- A larger window

- Easier to move sections around

- Eliminate a tendency to get the '+' (join?) symbol when it's not wanted. This may be down to my misuse though! Seems to arise after I've drawn a couple of line section, vertical and horizontal. I'd expect whatever is selected in the component list on the right to be the 'current' element, but right now I have 'resistor' highlighted yet the cursor is trying to sprinkle '+' elements around!

I see I've been using 1.23. Is 1.25 the latest?

I've used Gary's program even less so can't make a truly fair comparison.

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

Jonathan Kirwan schrieb:

Hi Jonathan, I must admit, that I have still a redraw problem but I'll fix that soon. With which action does this happen most strongly? Do you display the grid ? Best regards Andy

is

No, I don't display the grid very often. I played with it, though. But what I meant is that it's 'really bad' when I'm inserting or deleting lines or rows with those red/green things.

By the way, I just took two hours to write a short C routine to convert LTSpice schematics in .ASC files into ASCII text schematics. Works kind of well, for such short effort. Here's an example I just extracted using the new program:

Vcc | Vcc | | | Vcc | - | | --- V1 | / - | \ R2 --- / / | \ R3 \ | / | gnd \ | | +-----Vc | | C1 || | | ,-------||---|-------------, | | || | | / | | R6 | |/c | +-----/\/\----+---| /-\ | |>e ~ V2 | \ \-/ | | | | C3 || +-------, | +-----------||-------+ | | | || | | | / / / gnd \ R4 \ R1 \ R5 / / / \ \ \ | | | | | | | | | gnd gnd | --- --- | C2 | | | gnd

It's a bootstrapped BJT amp. I don't have the values on there yet, though I do parse them and can easily put them there. I just want to add some code to deal with the expressions that are allowed in LTSpice and automatically add them as footnotes, as they take up a lot of room when placed directly on the schematic adjacent to the part.

The method uses a GCD on all the (x,y) wiring points in the schematic to find the greatest common denominator and then divides the values to get integer character positions. I also gather up the min and max values in order to center onto a text page okay and allow room to add the legends. Symbols are, for now, recognized and hard-coded in the code -- I don't go to the .ASY files to examine how they are actually drawn (I imagine it would be too complex to do that well.) Wiring is handled by using a bitmap for each character that includes a dotted connection, left, right, top, and bottom short-walls, and a special indicator for overridden characters I place. This map then correctly judges the right character to place. (You can see in the above that the wire from C1 going to the Q1 base does not DOT to the wire it crosses.)

Needs more work, but it's a start to prove that the concept is workable.

Jon

Well done! Hope you'll pursue to completion and publication!

Meanwhile, could you post the SWCADIII schematic original, or a bitmap screenshot please?

--
Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK