eeshow - Eeschema schematics renderer and viewer ================================================ Eeshow renders schematics made by KiCad Eeschema to FIG, PDF, or PNG, and generates graphical differences between different versions of schematics sheets. It can work in plain files but it can also retrieve design files directly from a git repository. Furthermore, eeshow has an interactive mode for viewing schematics and differences. This work is distributed under the terms of the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, Version 2: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. For your convenience, a copy of the complete license has been included in the file COPYING.GPLv2. Prerequisites ------------- libcairo2-dev libgit2-dev libgtk-3-dev transfig imagemagick If building with USE_WEBKIT=y: ibwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev Development status ------------------ Eeshow is still incomplete. It should generally be usable, but still has many limitations, especially in the following areas: - not all details are rendered, e.g., pin attributes such as "clock input" - rendering isn't always exactly the same as in KiCad, e.g., text size may differ significantly - interactive use is not streamlined yet, e.g., revision selection - there may be unknown bugs More details on pending items can be found in the file TODO. Non-interactive rendering ========================= Eeshow can be invoked from the command line to render KiCad schematics to FIG, PDF, and PNG. Invocation ---------- The general form of invocation for rendering is as follows: eeshow [-r] file.lib ... file.sch -- format [options] Common if using PDF, the option -r can be used (after "eeshow") to recursively process sub-sheets. For PDF and PNG, the options -s scale and -o output-file can be used to control the size of the output and the output file. By default, eeshow writes to standard output. Examples: eeshow test.lib test.sch -- png -s 2 -o test.png eeshow -r neo900.lib kicad-libs/components/powered.lib neo900.sch \ -- pdf -o neo900.pdf More details on the above example can be found in the file DEMO. Revision access --------------- If the files are stored in a git repository, a revisions can be selected by prefixing file names with the commit ID, e.g., eeshow neo900.lib kicad-libs/components/powered.lib 6a9f71:neo900_SS_5.sch \ -- png -s 2 -o old.png Revision selection propagates to dependent files, unless explicitly overridden. E.g., the above example selects also revision 6a9f71 of neo900.lib. Using the component library cache --------------------------------- Eeschema copies all components it uses to a file named -cache.lib When operating on files, this library can be used as a convenient alternative to listing all the libraries that contributed content. However, when using eeshow with a revision history, the library cache should only be used if it is also kept in the repository. Otherwise, library changes in older revisions may get unnoticed. Non-interactive differences =========================== Eeshow can render two versions of a sheet to a bitmap and then compare them pixel by pixel, highlighting areas where differences are found. The output is written to a PNG file. Invocation ---------- The general form of invocation for rendering is as follows: eeshow file.lib ... file.sch -- diff [options] file.lib ... file.sch The usual options and revision selection can be used here as well. Example: LIBS="neo900.lib kicad-libs/components/powered.lib" eeshow $LIBS 6a9f71:neo900_SS_5.sch \ -- diff -s 2 -o diff.png $LIBS neo900_SS_5.sch GUI mode ======== GUI mode allows exploration of schematics and the comparison of different git revisions. Compared to eeschema, eeshow currently offers the following additional features: - access to the git revision history with visual differences between versions. - on hover, global labels show on which other sheets the label is used. Clicking on a name jumps to that sheet. - fast sheet change with PgUp/PgDn Invocation ---------- The basic invocation of GUI mode is as follows: eeshow file.lib ... file.sch Add the option -r to recursively load sub-sheets of file.sch If file.sch is in a git repository, eeshow automatically loads the revision history. The depth of the history can be limited with the option -N number-of-commits Examples: eeshow -N 30 -r neo900.lib kicad-libs/components/powered.lib neo900.sch eeshow `sed -n '/pcbnew/q;/^LibName[0-9]*=/{s///;s/$/.lib/p;};d' anelok.pro` \ anelok.sch Mouse function in GUI mode -------------------------- Eeshow uses only the left mouse button and the scroll wheel. Hover show additional details on revisions, sheets, global labels Click jump to sheet (on sub-sheet, sheet stack, global label hover box), open history, select revision Click and drag pan sheet, scroll history Scroll wheel zoom in or out Key functions in GUI mode ------------------------- + or = zoom in - zoom out * zoom to extents Home go to the top sheet Delete or Backspace go to the next higher sheet in hierarchy PgUp go to the previous sheet in sequence PgDn go to the next sheet in sequence Up or Down invoke the revision history (WIP) Tab toggle between old and new revision Esc cancel current action (exit history, close pop-up, de-highlight glabel, close help) H show/hide help window D when comparing revisions, show difference (default) N show newer sheet O show older sheet Q quit the viewer