kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Moses McKnight <moses@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/09/2015 06:50 AM, Tomasz Wlostowski wrote:
> On 09.10.2015 13:27, Markus Hitter wrote:
> > Hello all,
> Track deletion is of course supported, but it works more like in
> mainstream software - select the item and press Delete. I think the main
> complaint was that deletion doesn't work while the "Route" tool is
> active - you need to exit the router tool by pressing Esc to
> select/move/delete items. This behaviour is not our invention, we just
> followed the practice of other big SW packages (MS Office,
> Corel/Inkscape, Altium, Cadence). It can surely cause confusion of old
> Kicad users - and we will probably enable the legacy behaviour as an
> option, as soon as the stable release is out.

In the last post here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1490958

Art says, "In my opinion, it is more important to be consistent with the default 
mode (unless it is something really cocky) than say mimic behavior of Corel or 
Gimp. The goals and methodologies of a CAD program and a graphics package are 
just too different."

and

"Imagine if you had to switch from a "typing tool" to "erasing tool" in MS Word 
every time you had to type or erase something."


I would have to say I agree 110% - or more!  Kicad is a specialized tool, not a 
general graphics program, and there is nothing wrong with making it easier to 
use and more productive for it's purpose.  Ease of use is far more important 
than being able to instantly learn how to use it, and the problem is NOT that 
the new track deletion behaviour causes confusion, but that it is very decidedly 
less efficient than the legacy behaviour.