Advanced topics¶

Configuration files¶

Todo

Fill this up

File formats¶

Schim's main file format for storing projects, symbols and templates is XML. Project files use the extension .xproj whereas symbol files use the .xsym extension. Other than XML, Schim projects and symbols can be exported to/imported from DXF (.dxf) and exported to the following formats:

Portable Document Format ( .pdf )
Common image formats ( .jpg, .png, .svg )

XML¶

A project file may look like the following:

<project title="Untitled Project">
	<sheet title="New sheet">
		<header from="headers/defaultheader.xsym">
			<line x1="5" y1="180" x2="292" y2="180" />
		</header>
		<line x1="5" y1="20" x2="50" y2="80" linewidth="0.5"/>
		<rect x="40" y="70" w="120" h="50" linewidth="0.7" />
		<text text="Standalone text"/>
		<component from="symbols/subdirectory/coil.xsym">
			<var names="m mf manufacturer" desc="Manufacturer" value="Schneider"/>
		</component>
	</sheet>
</project>

Every project file starts with a <project> tag. A project consists of sheets, which are defined using <sheet> tags. Each sheet contains a header, which is specified using the <header> tag. If no header is specified, the sheet will use the default header.

The `from` attribute¶

Any tag can use this attribute to take its content from another file. The tag can also specify additional objects to include. For example, the following content

<header from="Default header">
   <line x1="5" y1="170" x2="292" y2="170" />
</header>

will create a header from the default header, but it will contain an additional line which is specified in the body of the <header> tag.

The attribute value is very flexible -- it can be specified in a variety of formats. It is interpreted in the following order:

File path relative to project root
Absolute file path
File path relative to user directory
File path relative to installation directory
Name of the resource

Todo

Idea

Add a global map of headers, so they do not have to be read from the file each time a new sheet is created.