kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Tim Hutt <tdhutt@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10 September 2014 22:25, Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Assuming I have correctly understood what you mean (English is not my
> native language) I'd have to disagree with it. All the opinions I have read
> here seem to me as coming from people who are genuinely convinced of what
> they are saying. Everybody here wants to make KiCad better. I support the
> notion that KiCad can and should improve in the usability/friendliness/etc
> department because I know your case as a first time user is far from
> unique, and I think that's not good for KiCad and first user experiences
> could be better without making the experience worse for everybody else.
> Now, discussing about these things in a mailing list this size is tricky
> because all of us may have strong opinions about something and there is
> lots of room for misunderstanding. So respect is key to begin with!
>

You're absolutely right. These are prime bike-shedding topics that was
could probably discuss forever without actually improving anything. So in
the interests of doing something.... I'm planning to do the following:

End goal: Improve the usability and learnability/discoverability of Kicad
without annoying experienced users.

Method:
1. File bugs for the issues I found in the video (assuming they aren't
already in the bug tracker).
2. Create a wiki page linking to important bugs, along with proposed
solutions and difficulty (example below). Kind of like the CERN work
packages page.
3. Fix the bugs! (when I say bugs I mean bugs and needed features)

Examples:

Bug: When kicad is run for the first time it complains about a missing
project file.
Solution: Either include the missing file, or don't complain if the missing
file is "". See src/foo/bar/baz.cpp:55
Difficulty: Easy

Bug: Can't disable mouse warp on zoom everywhere.
Solution: Add it to the preferences where it isn't available, or make those
parts of kicad respect the preference that is set elsewhere.
Difficulty: Easy

Bug: Mouse warping setting (and presumably others) aren't global - you have
to set them in about 5 different places.
Solution: Depends on what CERN do with the integration of kicad programs.
Difficulty: Hard

Bug: New users (both to Kicad, and PCB design in general) are unsure what
to do after running Kicad for the first time.
Solution 1: A dialog with links to tutorials on first startup.
Solution 2: Context-sensitive "signpost" tips.
etc.
Difficulty: Medium

For controversial bugs/solutions like the last one I'll list several
potential options and then they can be discussed.

Any major objections? As Javier said, please don't be mean - I'm
volunteering my bug fixing help and was nearly ready to abandon that idea
until I received a nice supportive off-list email (thanks!).

Cheers,

Tim