kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[John Beard <john.j.beard@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2015-01-10 at 02:27 +0000, John Beard wrote:
> On Fri, 2014-12-05 at 22:02 +0000, John Beard wrote:
> 
> The move exact and duplicate tools are now supplemented by an array tool
> which allows creation of grid, staggered grid and circular arrays of
> pads, lines or text within modedit. It is available in both legacy and
> GAL modes, but blocks can only be handled in the GAL mode. As a teaser,
> here is a staggered grid array with 100 pads:
> 
> http://s11.postimg.org/7xn9q458z/Screenshot_from_2015_01_10_02_14_11.png
> 
> A dialogue box is provided to adjust the array parameters.
> 
The duplicate and array tools have now been expanded to also work in
pcbnew. The features of this branch now include:

   * Exact move (Cartesian and polar) of any item in pcbnew or modedit 
     in legacy and GAL (Ctrl-M)
   * Exact move of block selections in GAL in pcbnew and modedit
   * Duplicate of pads, lines and text in modedit (legacy and GAL)
        * Shortcut Ctrl-D, Ctrl-Shift-D to increment pad numbers. 
        * Move exact can be used in the same operation to make it easy
          to create an offset copy of an item.
   * Duplicate of modules, lines, text, zones, targets and dimensions 
     in pcbnew (legacy and GAL).
        * Module references can be incremented with shift.
   * Array tool for grids, staggered grids and circular arrays for all
     items that can be duplicated. 
        * Items can be renumbered with a set of numbering schemes, both 
          1 and 2 dimensional. 
        * Text with "%s" placeholders has the array index substituted.

Between them, I think these tools make it much easier to generate large
footprints and can help with arrangement and/or panellisation of PCBs.

No back-annotation is performed, and no support for "clones" which
follow edits to the original, as these both require much bigger changes
at a more fundamental level.

The LP branch[1] seems to be in a conflicted state. The last three
commits are the ones, they have been rebased up to today's revision and
conflicts resolved in order to keep the main product branch history
simple. I can provide patches by email if needed.

I'd be happy to write up the tools in the docs, but I don't know where
that should go right now? Wait for a decision about doc formats?

I believe these tools are ready for inclusion, but I still welcome
comments, bug reports, advice or requests for changes.

Cheers,

John

[1]https://code.launchpad.net/~john-j-beard/kicad/moveexact/+merge/243870