kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jan Mrázek <email@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Seth,

thank you for explaining the situation about the current situation with 
API. I really appreciate it. You don't have to be sorry about no having 
a shiny new API for v6 - the whole team have done a tremendous amount of 
great work and v6 look awesome! I don't know a single plugin developer 
who is disappointed by not having a brand new API. When it comes to 
myself, if I ever sounded disappointed, or I was too aggressive in my 
proposals, it was just because of the fact that I had no idea what to 
expect (and plan my development according it), not that because I wanted 
a new API. It just can be frustrating to not know if implementing new 
features will be a waste of time or not since you don't know if the 
upcoming version of KiCAD will break them all or not.

I am happy to inform your, that I managed to port all plugins I maintain 
successfully to v6 and now I am just waiting for my users to test it 
properly. In this regards I would like to thank especially to Jon Evans, 
who was really helpful with providing support, fixing regressions and 
answering all my questions. Finally I can migrate all my workflows to v6 
and enjoy all the new features. Thank you, again, guys for your 
wonderful work.

If there ever will be discussion about future API/upcoming changes, it 
would be my pleasure to participate.

Jan

On 16. 11. 21 19:24, Seth Hillbrand wrote:
> Hi Folks-
>
> Unfortunately, we were not able to get the Python revisions into 
> version 6.  As such, we'll be using the legacy SWIG implementation for 
> pcbnew during v6 and will introduce the updated API early in the v7 
> development process.
>
> ## What happened?
>
> Our goals for the Python API were to make a stable set of calls that 
> plugin developers could rely on to work over multiple KiCad versions 
> and to expand python scripting to eeschema.  This required abstracting 
> a number of underlying concepts and re-writing a set of core 
> applications.  And it didn't get done in time.
>
> We decided that it was more important to get v6 out to our userbase 
> with the status quo python scripting than for an indefinite delay to 
> get the first API out.
>
> ## What's the plan going forward?
>
> Following the release of v6, the KiCad core dev team will be meeting 
> to plan out our work for v7.  One of the items on our agenda will be 
> to review where things went well and poorly in the v6 development.  We 
> do this with the intention of improving both our development work and 
> our communication with the community during upcoming releases.
>
> We're also going to be reaching out to some of our plugin developers 
> to get their input on things that they'd like to use the API for and 
> ways that we might be able to facilitate that in v7.  If you have 
> interest in being a part of that discussion (and you have published a 
> couple plugins for KiCad or other projects), please reach out.  We're 
> happy to include you.
>
> I deeply regret that we won't have a shiny new python interface in 
> v6.  I know that this will be a disappointment to a number of people.  
> Hopefully, the major advancements that we have built into v6 will 
> assuage that somewhat.
>
> ---
> Seth
>
> --
> KiCad Services Corporation Logo
> Seth Hillbrand
> *Lead Developer*
> +1-530-302-5483‬
> Long Beach, CA
> www.kipro-pcb.com <https://www.kipro-pcb.com/> info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> <mailto:info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
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