kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Strontium <strntydog@xxxxxxxxx>]

His second criticism is with the via tool.

What he did is lay two tracks on his board, one on either side. (Both 
had the same net)

He then pressed the via tool, and dropped vias into the intersections.

The vias created design violations because they are assigned No Net.  
Doing DRC does not reconnect them.

This is hostile, especially for a new user.  His complaint was, whats 
the point of a via tool if i cant place a via on a track and it "Just 
Work".  Seems a reasonable criticism.

We argued about the end cases, but I agree with him that:

1. If you have tracks with the same net on multiple tracks, the via tool 
should be able to place a via on the tracks and pick up their net.  It 
shouldn't create a Design violation.

2. If you have one track with a net and the other(s) with "No Net" the 
via should get the net of the one track that has a net.

3. That a DRC should propagate the net through connectivity of the 
connected tracks and vias laid in this way, and it currently doesn't.  
It just throws a design violation.

4. With DRC checking enabled, it shouldn't be possible to drop a via if 
that via would cause a design violation.  Exactly like its not possible 
to lay two tracks with different nets over one another. (For example, 
two tracks on different layers, with different nets should not be able 
to put a via over them because thats a design violation)

I am not sure if the Via tool is considered complete, or still a work in 
progress, however I think these things should be considered as the way 
it currently works is unintuitive.

Steven