[Ktechlab-devel] Some feature ideas

[Alan Grimes]

Link wrote:
> Here are some ideas for features that I had, that you may or may not be 
> interested in. I thought I'd let you know anyway :).

> 1. Field lines indicating the magnetic flux around inductors. Similar to 
> the animated wires indicating current flow, animated field lines could 
> show the changing magnetic fields around inductors.

Before that we need transformers; 'nuff said.

> 2. Tooltips on components. For example, a capacitor's tooltip could show 
> the charge stored on it, and a resistive component could show the power 
> it dissipates.

The engine does a lot of weird linear algebra stuff, there doesn't seem
to be a variable for flux or charge... Computing power draw seems rather
straightforward though...

> 3. A "discharge all" feature that simply resets every wire to 0V, 0A. 
> When changing circuits while some components are still powered (by a 
> supply, or because some capacitors/inductors still have energy stored), 
> you often get weird results. A "discharge" button would eliminate these 
> problems.

Yeah, there should be a way to kick our buggy clac engine... You'd do it
through circuit and have it re-build the ElementSet...

> 4. A "show power pins" option on opamps similar to the "show body pin" 
> on MOSFETs. Using the power pins, one could select the minimum and 
> maximum values of an opamp's output.

That completely changes the nature of the device. It goes from being an
idealized linear device to being a nonlinear device which becomes a good
deal more complex on the implementation side. =\ It is definitely on the
todo list though.

> 5. Hidden wires or net ports. When you have more than a handful of 
> components, it can get extremely tricky to see different wires. A simple 
> solution would be "net ports" like gEDA's gschem has. Place a net port 
> on one pin, and another with the same identifier on another, and the 
> pins act as if they're connected by a wire, though none is drawn.

Now that's a good one...



> 6. Transformers/mutual inductors, Zeners, regulators and other 
> components commonly found in real-life circuits that KTL lacks. Big one, 
> I know, but it would make KTechlab a lot better!

You can use the existing diode part as a zener (when it works.) =P

> 7. Enhanced potentiometers: log/antilog pots, and the ability to set the 
> fader position as a percentage in the properties window.

Yeah, the slider needs to be longer to permit more precise setting...

> 8. Overload indicators: if a component is subject to more 
> voltage/current/power than it is supposed to handle, it could display a 
> warning signal, informing the user to change the parameters or supplies. 
> This also involves addition of polar capacitors, capacitor voltage 
> ratings, resistor wattage ratings, and so on, but those values need not 
> be used by the actual simulator (i.e. a .25W resistor dissipating 1W 
> would still work, but would display a warning sign, as would a polar 
> capacitor that's reverse-biased), so it shouldn't be /that/ difficult to 
> implement.

Yeah, I had something similar in mind, the bigger problem is that we
need to completely overhaul the entire component library cuz the current
one is unmaintainable long-term.

Right now I'm just fixing bugs and trying to get the code to a state
where it's feasible to implement such radical changes.

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