kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Ruth Ivimey-Cook <ruth@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wayne,

> We have crash reporting code just about ready to merge so it will be
> available in nightly builds as soon as it's merged.  I doubt that it
> will make it into the 5.1 branch but it is possible.

Once it's considered good, I would encourage its inclusion; as I said, 
it should make bugs easier to find.

> >   3. Common: I am still frustrated that the key combinations for similar
> >      tasks are not the same. For example, to place a wire in schema, it's
> >      shift-W while in pcb it's shift-X.
> We have so many accelerator and hot keys assigned that it's getting
> difficult to make changes but we can take a look at this one. It
> probably makes sense to unify these even though they are referred to as
> different operations in the schematic (wire) and board (route) editors.

I have similar issues with the duplicate action, which is sometimes 'c', 
'd', command-'d' and sometimes unavailable as a keystroke but present in 
the context menu.

My point about named shortcut/keymaps was aimed at making a unifying 
change easier; give the current keymap(s) a name - "Keycad 5" for 
example - and then make a new named "Kicad 6" keymap with the best bits 
of current but simplified and extended as appropriate. A simple keyap 
editor (would be surprised if that's not available open source 
somewhere) could then be used to adapt the shipped keymaps to the user's 
desire.

Thus someone who is used to the current setup doesn't have to change but 
can if they wish extend it as they desire. Someone coming in fresh, or 
ready to change, can try the new map and experiment.

> >   4. Common: I am still frustrated that some task combinations aren't
> >      possible: duplicate doesn't work on wires or connectors, drag
> >      doesn't work on graphic lines or components, etc.
> I'm assuming you are referring to the schematic editor.  Most of this
> will be addressed in version 6 with the new tool framework.  I'm not
> sure what you mean by duplicate.  The repeat feature (Insert key) does
> work with wires, symbols, and bus entries).
Yes, sorry, "common" wasn't right. However please be aware that most 
laptop users and many desktops don't have a usable Insert key.
> >   1. Kicad: I would love to see a setup kicad libraries action (probably
> >      not limited to an installer) which configures the library settings
> >      and installs libraries to match. The reason is that my understanding
> >      is that because the library files are being updated (great) that can
> >      make a given project dependent on a given issue of library (witness
> >      recent change of location of pin headers). I think it would be best
> >      therefore to not assume a user will have just one copy of the kicad
> >      library, but potentially several, maybe even one per major project.
> >      In this case, relying on a "system" library (as is true for
> >      /Libraries/Application Support/kicad on mac) makes no sense.
> I'm not completely sure what you mean here but there is discussion about
> implementing some type of library configuration tool of some type to
> handle most of the issues you described above.

Basically:

I want kicad to understand there are libraries which consist of 
schematics, footprints, 3d models and more, which should probably be 
handled as a triple rather than completely independently. I think it 
appropriate to give this triple a name, e.g. "Kicad 5.1", "Acme Corp", 
... and probably have a last modified date and perhaps other things 
(copyright etc?) in metadata that is easily inspectable from the UI.

I want the user to be given the choice on install where to put the 
standard library (i.e. a select folder action) and for the paths to be 
set up appropriately from that point without the user having to 
understand path specs or the difference between file types.

I want a kicad user to be able to clearly inspect the source of a 
component (sch or pcb), and whether any components are using "out of 
triple" parts (i.e. a footprint from Kicad, a 3d model from Acme). Such 
wouldn't be an error, but might be and it should be easy to locate in a 
large project.

I want a kicad user to be able to define one or more library triples as 
the default to use, and for component pickers to make it easy to see 
which triple a part is being selected from - perhaps using colour.

I want a kicad user looking for a component that is not present in the 
current configuration for a project to find out whether the component 
exists in another available library. E.g. if you are intentionally using 
Kicad standard lib for this project, but have Acme Corp's library 
installed, then you could ask Kicad to discover components in the 
not-installed library; if found you would then have to do something else 
to use the component, should you chose.

I would like, but can see it's a "stretch goal" for kicad to have a web 
registry of components which people could plug into, in the manner of 
the registries used by "pip" or "composer" or "npm" tools. Preferably 
don't reinvent wheels for this!


I mentioned deleting library parts elsewhere: I was envisaging an action 
that, given a working kicad project, would pare down the libraries it 
was using to just those parts of the library used by the project, so as 
to make a minimal library configuration for that project. I was thinking 
of this because it would help with distributing projects such that the 
project files had no dependency on what if any library a kicad on 
another system was using. If the project files themselves will do this, 
then of course the library is not required. However, it might be helpful 
to have an "export components as library" to make a minimal library from 
a project.


> >   2. Kicad: A subsidiary to the above would be to have an action that
> >      prunes a given library install to those files required by the
> >      current project, rather than all files. Given we're using Git, the
> >      pruned files could be replaced with a suitable "git reset" command.
> There is no git plugin for either symbol or footprint libraries although
> it has been discussed many times.  Of course you can always remove
> libraries from you global symbol library table.

I wasn't thinking of a git plugin, but my current config has kicad 
pointing at a git working tree of the kicad library. If this were the 
normal thing to do (perhaps with use of a shallow checkout) then, behind 
the scenes, a user can be offered "update library from net", "reset 
library to factory settings" and similar actions. I'm not suggesting 
anything automatic, or that git itself should be exposed, which are 
probably more confusing to most people than helpful. And of course the 
rest of Kicad knows nothing of this.

> >   2. Schema: Could we also have an unmake sheet action, which deletes the
> >      sheet after placing the content of the selected sheet into the
> >      current one as if "move" was selected, so the next thing is to click
> >      to place?
> If by unmake you mean undo, this is a very difficult technical challenge
> due to the way complex hierarchies are handled.  We are hoping to
> implement this during v6.

I meant an action that, given a selected hierarchical schema, would copy 
all elements of that schema into the current schema, and then delete the 
sub schema. In other words, it is the opposite of "make schema from 
selected components".

This probably wouldn't be doable if the selected schema was itself one 
of multiple instances, in which case the action would be disabled.

> >   1. Pcb: Is there a concept of an "air wire" - a link to let the
> >      connected-ness calculations know a wire exists off-board (on another
> >      board, as an actual cable, or something else)? If not could we have one?
> There is no concept of "air wires".  All nets must be on the board being
> laid out.  Pcbnew does not support routing multiple boards in a single
> project.  I'm sure we could we do this but I don't see a lot of utility
> in it.  If we did, it would be something that would be way down the road.

A pity - you don't need multiple pcbs... just a need to use an actual 
wire on a pcb. Or even (as in my case) a design which connects to an SBC 
which supplies power to multiple pins of the bus connector; unless you 
can, on your own board, connect those multiple pins together, you will 
end up with "unconnected nets". On a two layer board such connections 
are not easy and there is strictly no need, so my design has 1 
unconnected 3.3v net on it.


> >   4. Pcb: is there a chance of a smart snap - where the editor looks for
> >      things to line up the cursor with (e.g. while moving 1 wire it looks
> >      to see if there is another wire nearly in line with it, or while
> >      moving a component it checks to see when this component is 1/2 way
> >      between two other components?)
> I'm not sure what you mean precisely mean by this.

A feature implemented in many graphic design tools to make aligning and 
distributing items quicker.

While moving a thing, the program is checking the placement of other 
things you might wish to align or distribute with, and offers visual 
feedback (often changes of colour, or dimension/arrow lines) to 
represent the fact that if you stopped moving "here" the thing would be 
distributed in the indicated way. So for example if you moved a 
component, when it was evenly spaced between two other components you 
would get two dimension arrows, one linking each side to the 
neighbouring box.

In the graphic design community it is a standard feature.


Regards

Ruth