kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["mitjan696-ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxx" <mitjan696-ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 I've find the copy-paste functionality only useful for penalization of designs if you make the PCB's at home.
As both of you found out for replicating parts of repetitive layout, layout and schematics have to be in sync. And I don't see a way how one could copy-paste layout and then back annotate the changes back to schematics. How would the tool know where to place new schematics elements?
I also think that this is an awkward workflow. The designer usually knows already when doing the schematics that some parts will be duplicated. So you put those parts into hierarchical subsheet, and then you put multiple sheets pointing to the same schematics. But in this case you already have all the footprints in layout (of the original part of the layout and of the parts one intends for replication) and it does not make sense to copy-paste.
At this point I'll make a shameless plug for my Replicate layout action plugin (https://github.com/MitjaNemec/Kicad_action_plugins#replicate-layout). 

You can easily replicate parts of the layout between same hierarchical sheets.
And if you feel like it it might serve as a source of inspiration if somebody wants to implement this in KiCad internally.
Best regards

    On Sunday, 16 February 2020, 08:03:04 CET, Eeli Kaikkonen <eeli.kaikkonen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:  
 
 

On Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 1:47 AM Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Pasting creates new timestamps.  So copy/paste works fine, there’s just no way to do a unified copy/paste between eeschema *and* pcbnew.

Yes, copy/paste in pcbnew works, there's no bug there. But the question is: is it really useful that the "path" is copied, too.
As you said, if the user wants to keep the schematic and the layout in sync after copying a footprint, they must:1. reannotate the footprints2. add symbols to the schematic3. reannotate the symbols4. and reassociate by reference.
That would work as well if the copies of the footprints wouldn't have "path" at all, i.e. if they were like newly added footprints.
What do users except whey they copy and paste footprints? Do they expect them to be tied to the same symbol as the original footprint, or do they except them to be like newly added footprints? I would say the latter is more natural expectation. I have falled into that trap myself. I thought that copypasting a footprint is a handy way add a new footprint to the board without going through the "Add new footprint" function. Then I changed the refdes on the board. At some point I noticed that somehow the refdes was changed back. Only later I realized that now there were two footprints tied to the same symbol and normal updating PCB from schematic changed the refdes back.
Eeli Kaikkonen
_______________________________________________
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
Post to    : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
More help  : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp