kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[hauptmech <hauptmech@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 14/03/2019 8:16 AM, Ruth Ivimey-Cook wrote:
> > >   3. Common: I am still frustrated that the key combinations for 
> > > similar
> > >      tasks are not the same. For example, to place a wire in schema, 
> > > it's
> > >      shift-W while in pcb it's shift-X.
> > We have so many accelerator and hot keys assigned that it's getting
> > difficult to make changes but we can take a look at this one. It
> > probably makes sense to unify these even though they are referred to as
> > different operations in the schematic (wire) and board (route) editors.
>
> I have similar issues with the duplicate action, which is sometimes 
> 'c', 'd', command-'d' and sometimes unavailable as a keystroke but 
> present in the context menu.
>
> My point about named shortcut/keymaps was aimed at making a unifying 
> change easier; give the current keymap(s) a name - "Keycad 5" for 
> example - and then make a new named "Kicad 6" keymap with the best 
> bits of current but simplified and extended as appropriate. A simple 
> keyap editor (would be surprised if that's not available open source 
> somewhere) could then be used to adapt the shipped keymaps to the 
> user's desire.
>
> Thus someone who is used to the current setup doesn't have to change 
> but can if they wish extend it as they desire. Someone coming in 
> fresh, or ready to change, can try the new map and experiment. 


Except for the occasional mess-up by new developers adding new features, 
the shortcuts are customizable and the keymap file is easy to edit with 
a text editor if you don't like the interface provided in kicad.

My keymap for instance is unified and high frequency commands are all 
under my left hand so I don't have to look at the keyboard or remove my 
mouse hand to trigger actions. It allows me to work faster, but since 
there is no mnemonic (eg 'w' for wire) it requires effort to memorize 
and most casual users would not be happy with it.

If you work out a kicad unified keymap that works for you, I would 
encourage you to publish it on the kicad.info site. Usually for every 
issue voiced by a user, there are a bevy of users silently suffering.

I don't see why the developers would not include a unified keymap with 
the distribution that one could load using the keymap import.