kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Laurent Dufrechou wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I’ve just discovered kicad and seen that there is(was?) a python 
> scripting support embedded into it.
>
> I’ve tried to build from source kicad on my linux box (seems more 
> easy) but I could’nt manage to get python support…
>
> Reading the TODO list of CMake, I’ve seen it is not yet supported with 
> cmake.
>
> Is there another wat to compile kicad with python support?
>
> Does it works well and is it very used (seems not L ). If it is not 
> very used, can you explain what are the current problem of the python 
> binding if any?
>
> Regards,
>
> Laurent

Of the core programs, kicad, pcbnew, eeschema, cvpcb, ....

only kicad, the project manager, has any python bindings/support. This 
makes python support basically worthless to the project at this time. 
The programs in which it would be most useful are pcbnew then eeschema. 
And those programs and their key data structures are still very 
transient as we are modernizing code which was written 15 years ago. I 
would not spend any time on python until we can get through the 
modernization effort. Python bindings would only get in the way now and 
make it harder to evolve where we want to go. In a year or so, we should 
then put in python bindings into pcbnew, at least.

The old make files have support in them for python, but as I say, this 
is only for the project manager, and that is useless. You cannot 
manipulate the contents of a schematic or layout file with the current 
python. Python will be nice eventually, I am in favor of it, but I think 
it would be a mistake at this time.

--
Best Regards,

Dick