On 5/21/2010 7:40 AM, Invisible wrote:

>
> That and the subcircuit label...
>

Actually, if you click on the subcircuit, you'll see some items in the 
attributes window. One item is label. But, if you have multiple 
instances of the same circuit and change the label for one, it changes 
for all.

Again, somewhat annoying.

>> One thing that is particularly annoying is if you need a gate with an
>> even number of inputs beyond 2: They don't exist.
>
> Yeah, that too. Hello? It's software? It's not like with real hardware
> where it would *cost money* to have more sizes available. :-P

Well that and the fact that some of the sizes aren't actually available 
in hardware, yet some sizes that are available in actual hardware aren't 
available in the app. (in particular 4-input gates!)


> It's trying to be helpful by detecting circuits which are unstable.

I think it's more or less bailing out on a potential infinite loop.

> Actually, I found a small hack: If you have, say, an RS latch and you
> configure the S pin to float low and the R pin to float high, it
> generally stops complaining. (Unless something really *is* wrong...)

Right, so the circuit isn't in an invalid state when it's plopped onto 
the board.

> Yeah. The whole wiring concept is just awkward. For example, Reactor
> (which has nothing to do with electronics but does involve wiring things
> together) has wires that go in a straight line from pin to pin. And when
> you move stuff, IT DOESN'T BREAK ALL THE WIRES OR RANDOMLY CONNECT THEM
> TO OTHER PINS! Sheesh, it's not rocket science...

Actually, it can be a little tough to reroute wires when restricted to 


>> Also frustrating is the lack of bidirectional pins for subcircuits.
>
> So far I haven't found this to be a problem.
>

It is when you have something that is communicating on a data bus, and 
can send and receive data.

>> I'm not terribly concerned with how the application looks. It
>> functions reasonably if you stay away from the caveats.
>
> I'd prefer something less ugly to look at, personally.
>

Well, sure, but function before form. I mean,

this one was pretty, but was a pain to work with: 
http://www.logiccircuit.org/


>>> But apart from all that, it works perfectly. :-}
>>
>> It does the job, at least. It's somewhat better than the rest of the
>> programs out there.
>
> KLogic was easier to wire up. And it could do simulation graphs, which
> is extremely useful when you're trying to check, e.g., that your flip
> actually flops on the rising edge.

Also, not available for Windows platform...

>
> It already *has* keyboard shortcuts for selecting different gates and
> stuff. What are you asking for?
>

Oh, yeah, the 10 Ctrl-# keys for the toolbar items, but that's it.

>> Falstad's circuit sim seems a bit easier to use at times, and it's
>> interface isn't stellar.
>
> Which one?
>
http://www.falstad.com/circuit/

> I also considered doing this. It would be nice to be able to concentrate
> on building logic rather than working around the limitations of some tool.

Yep.

>
> The reason I haven't attempted this yet is that I have literally no clue
> how to do something as complex as registering arbitrary mouse clicks and
> drawing sophisticated graphics in response. (E.g., how the hell do you
> figure out what the user just clicked on? Usually I let the toolkit sort
> that out - but this doesn't work if you draw everything yourself.)
>

You have a choice between hit-testing a rectangle or using something 
like a region to hit-test. (Either your own "is this point inside a 
polygon" test (Actually, really simple: How many times do you cross a 
line in the poly from the point going in one direction, if its an even 
number you're outside, if it's an odd number, you're inside), or using 
the operating system's ability to create regions from paths (At least 
under Windows... Dunno about X) Once the region is created, it's a 
bitmap and very quick to test. I've done quite a few custom controls in 
my day. One of which is a nearly cad-like environment.


>
> Join the club. ;-)

Hehe ... I have a rather ambitious half-finished hex editor sitting on 
my hard drive. Dozens of other little things, as well.

The hex editor when I get finished with it will be very nice, though. 
Able to interpret text data, overlay structures, use alternate word 
groupings, etc. The core editor portion is nearly complete, but I'm 
still working out how best to manage large files, as far as storing 
edits without actually writing to the file, and without slurping the 
entire file into memory. The big challenge is how to handle the ability 
to insert/delete bytes, since these involve shifting subsequent data, 
and only loading what is needed. Simple for a single span, but when you 
start getting multiple spans of data, it gets a bit complicated in how 
to deal with it and still be efficient.

-- 
~Mike

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