Update to the state of things

[fenjalien]

Hi, I started this repository many moons ago because I wanted to have an equivalent to circuitikz. Since then, the repository has gained over 50 stars and two PRs about improving the project. However, my last commit was over three months ago and my focus has been on other Typst packages (particularly cetz as its needed to draw stuff). So, here I want to layout and discuss my ideas and plans for this project, it'll be a ramble because I haven't planned this and I'm in an annoyingly warm room right now.

To summarise

This package aims to be a port of circuitikz for Typst. Anything you can do in it you should be able to do in this package.

Name

I originally picked circuitypst as it follows the same pattern as circuitikz, but since Typst recommends against using "typst" in the name of packages, a new one should be found. I want to recommend circetz as it is still similar and includes the main dependency package.

Components

There are frankly too many component in circuitikz to be able to include all of them for an MVP so they should be added on a as-needed basis. That being said the way in which to create components should be easy and user-facing enough that any user could do it without having to delve into some pits of spaghetti code (also you shouldn't have to register them).

Another issue with adding components is having a reliable source to take diagrams and base them off. I'm not sure where they came from for circuitikz but from what I can find the industry standard is to use IEC 60617. However this costs CHF 650 (swiss francs)! for a 1 year subscription. So for now either playing around with measuring them in circuitikz or somehow scraping them from the source would be the best way.

Styling

Being able to customise the appearance of each component or group or class is a big thing in circuitikz. I'm not sure if cetz's styling is able to perform in the same way yet...

API

Currently two functions to and node are exported. To draw a component with them you have to pass the component name and some coordinates, they then do some funky transformations and insert the component from a dictionary. The component element in the dictionary draws around the point (0,0) and to (1,0) for paths. Theres some extra stuff to do with anchors as well.

The functions to and node come directly from cicuitikz's api for drawing components in a path or node command, which I copied because I wanted to remain as similar as possible. But cetz is different and I honestly don't like this way. So instead I want to try, each component is a function. Something like this:

and-gate((0,0))
resistor((1,0), (2,2))

Its more cetz-y for the lack of a better word. I would then plan to possibly have each call a componet function, which takes the coordinates, styling and the component's body/draw function and does the funky stuff to transform the component and its anchors properly.

To conclude

I hope this makes sense and clears up where I want to take this. Please ask questions or suggest a different direction. I'm not sure when I could get around to this, tbh I'm going to get distracted improving cetz again. The main thing I don't want with laying dormant is https://xkcd.com/927/!