Annotations
under review
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Usairem Malamgeer
In schematics there is a dire need to place a Text on the schematics that tells the viewer what part of the schematics they are looking at.
This
a. Makes it easy to cross check in between large schematics
b. Easier to understand
PS. Please don't mix it with the "add comment", that is a gem to have.
Akshay Budhiraja
I would like to echo this sentiment. We are a small organization considering using this tool to design some of our future products.
Every schematic that we have ever designed has had annotations to describe certain aspects of the circuit design.
Under a push button controller, it may describe the relationship between capacitor values and power-on time to explain the cap values selected. Under a power supply, describing relationship between resistors to select a specific output current / voltage, etc.
These are very common scenarios and lead to clean, organized and readable schematics that can be worked on in the future by someone else. I would say this feature is essential / critical to any multi-person team that may change over time.
Labels to group certain circuit design elements may well be useful as well, but annotations on its own is crucial.
Matthias
under review
Matthias
Merged in a post:
Support non-electrical components
Lance Cassidy
Sometimes I want to use non-electrical components to explain the behavior of the system. For ex. pneumatics or other mechanical parts. (from Brittany at http://viam.com/)
Lance Cassidy
Question: Have you tried using pinned comments to annotate a diagram? If so, what is it about it that you don't think works well?
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Usairem Malamgeer
Lance Cassidy: I believe comments should function as comments and annotations should work like annotations. It does not make sense to "Add a Comment" to "part Function" or "Part Name" does it?
You can add a comment to a functionality or if you find a problem.
Having a comment on "Atmega328P-AU", which is just a name does not make any sense does it?
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Usairem Malamgeer
Lance Cassidy: Imagine these Text and Labels being Comments
Matthias
Usairem Malamgeer: Looking at this image it seems like almost all labels either belong to a net or a part
except the 4 large red ones...are those the type of labels you mean?
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Usairem Malamgeer
Matthias: yeah, thats the text I was referring to.
Matthias
Usairem Malamgeer: I wonder if what we actually want is to visually group things and then add a label to that group?
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Usairem Malamgeer
Matthias: Nice thought - however, not all groups need annotation and not all annotation need to have Groups - they can annotate a specific header for a specific purpose as well.
Like in the image above, the ICSP annotation is for just that single 2x4 header, but tells the user what functionality that header has.
These combined with the ability to add comments and explain stuff right on the schematics would be hugeeee