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Hello,
I found a Klayout 0.26 pdf manual.
Is there a more recent pdf version, or is this good enough? I prefer a continuous a pdf manual rather than html docs and links.
Shon.
Comments
You can use 0.26 if you like, but the PDF manual is not provided by me. My deployment path is HTML and I don't plan to publish a PDF document as well.
Matthias
Well Foo,
Thank you for your time.
I prefer a (well constructed) PDF manual for reasons such as
a "search window" and linear document that you don't have to
bounce between pages up / down to navigate, the navigation
pane is handy if headings are harvested to support that.
I made one once for Xschem by wading through every page
of that HTML manual. Later on Stefan came up with a way
to automate that process. You might like to contact him to
see whether it's an easy uptake for klayout.
Hi Jim,
I'm not so much afraid of the automation, more of the outcome.
The documentation was written in a piecewise mode and I'm afraid a large document will read more like independent snippets pasted together. I guess it will not be fun. After all, I'm not a technical writer.
Matthias
Hi Matthias,
I like the content of the online version, and I don't mind the output you mentioned. It's good that the docs are self contained pages with data. The manual reads like a manual and not an essay, this is great!
I'm not always available online to click through the many links to find an answer to my problem. And just like dick_freebird typed, a pdf provides features such as word search which would be a complicated thing to do with multiple web links.
Thank you
Update: here is a sample I generated from the documentation sources: https://www.klayout.org/downloads/dropbox/offline-manual.pdf
It needs some polishing - for example, not all links are working - but basically that is the quality I can provide.
It's a decent 2000+ pages even though I stripped the Qt binding classes.
Looking forward to your feedback,
Matthias
A cursory check's impressions:
1) Tight and pretty, more than just a html-stack "paste job".
Prettier than anything I've done by hand.
2) Cross-links and index seem to work perfectly
3) Got to a "Classes" section which was all cross-links, in this
section I'd think a line after the link that summarizes its purpose /
use, might help someone scanning for function and not knowing
the right name. But that needs some direct typing by someone
who knows. There is a description down in the individual
class-member sections but that's sort of "after the fact" in the
context of trying to figure out which of the hundreds, to read.
Maybe something like a 2-column table mapping function to
name, maybe keyworded?
Very good! Thanks for your comments!
I'm going to give it some polishing - BTW, I just added a TOC at the beginning. The classes should look a bit better now - the description column was missing. Maybe you can check again.
Best regards,
Matthias
Hi,
Thank you for the pdf. Time to cuddle up on the couch with it.
Enjoy ... but honestly there is better literature.
Like this:
This is cool, awesome~! Thanks!