gomponent - v0.1-beta

Gnome component archiver

Introduction 1.1 What is gomponent 1.2 Comercial usage
Installation & Requirements
Usage 3.1 The config (preferences) dialog 3.2 Basic usage 3.3 Transistors 3.4 Resistors
Bugfixes
Contact

1. Introduction

This projects intended audience is mainly electronic-engineers (or any kind of electronic-enthusiasts). It should help the hobbyist as well as electronic professionals.

1.1 What is gomponent?

Gomponent is a database frontend to mySQL for electronic parts (like transistors, resistors, capacitors, ICs) ...
It's main features: - showing the NPN and PNP symbol (for morons like me who

                        hardly ever have to look it up :) 
                     -  resistor color-code conversion
                     -  view datasheets with external pdf-viewer

1.2 Comercial usage

Although gomponent is released under the GNU General Public License and provides you the source code as well as no usability-limitation, usage is only completly free for private/educational purposes. But since i strongly believe in the thought of sharing information, there is no fix price for this program. Please support me in any way you can since i'm a poor german student :)
In any case it would be nice if you'd drop me a mail if you use gomponent.

So: If you use gomponent in your work without any material interest (the aim of your work is not earning money), you can use or modify it for free.

If you use gomponent in an comercial environment, please consider supporting me. The way of supporting me is not necessarily important. A good start would be to drop me a mail to tell me how you use gomponent and how much you like it.

Of course, money talks ;)

In any case I will not demand anything from anyone. Copyright remains with me. Rules of the GPL apply.

2. Installation & Requirements

Please refer to the installation instructions given in the INSTALL file. Thank you.

3. Usage

3.1. The config (preferences) dialog

Pressing the config button will open the preferences-window.

Pressing OK will save the settings to the rcfile (default ~/.gomponentrc). Pressing APPLY will just use the current settings but not save them. Settings are not saved automaticaly upon program-exit!

Please set mysql-host, mysql-user and mysql-password.

Autoconnect: When set, gomponent will automatically connect

after startup

PDF-Viewer:     executable to pdf-viewer. %f will be replaced by
                the filename.

Status-Delay: amount of seconds after which the messages in the

status-bar dissapear

Profi-Notation: if set, resistor values will be display like this:

                4k7, 4M7 instead of 4,7k or 4,7M... some like it,
                some don't :)

Verbose-mode: When set, gomponent is very verbosely on stdout.

used for debugging.

3.2 Basic Usage

When connected to the database, you can add, delete, update or find parts in the database. the "clear" button clears all fields. When searching, "*" is a valid wildcard.

3.3 Transistors

todo

3.4 Resistors

todo

4. Bugfixes

I plan to fix reported bugs as soon as possible. But like most people, I do not have much time and the amount of work I spend into this project is very dependant from my enthusiasm on this area. (Which is closely related to the amount of feedback i'll receive ;)

If you find any unexpected behaviour, please send me a bugreport. You can find my E-Mail adress in the AUTHORS file. Please run gomponent in verbose mode and attach the output to the e-mail... (e.g. "gomponent --verbose > /tmp/report.txt")

You can also mail patches, feature requests, comments, presents... ;)

Thanks for your support

5. Authors

Please have a look at the AUTHORS file to find information on the Author(s)...