4.0.7 now offically released

Blog announcement https://kicad.org/post/release-4.0.7/

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I saw a new 4.0.7 build on Ubuntu last night, replacing the older “unofficial beta”

I remember some of the “changes without a bug report” as reported though.
Layers with a numeric name for a start

Yes it was https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1667867. I think Wayne is just going by the commit message on the 4.0 branch, and the way patches get back ported to the 4.0 branch sometimes the bug ref gets left off.

More importantly, the 4.0.7 Win64 download is 705MB, which means it has been built with recent libraries , including .step 3D models. I can see a lot of forum questions coming :confounded:

I don’t do windows so what do I care? :wink:

Seriously, it will be nice to see who is engaged.

We have plenty of Windows users on this forum. More surprising is that there are still 32 bit users on unsupported XP

Don’t be mad. (It was my doing i fear.) If we do not update the 3d models, the 3d model and footprint lib get out of sync.
The problem here is that the footprint libs are setup (by default) to use the github plugin.
In the last month we had at least 5 questions about 3d model scaling. I needed to tell every user that they need to manually update their 3d library. (I also advised them to switch to a local footprint lib setup to prevent future problems.)

It might be time to also supply a minimal kicad installer that does not include 3d models. (For people with limited data volume or with very slow internet)

Or for people that don’t install them because they think it’s distracting eye-candy. At least that’s what I want from past experience: Just last week I had a student who wanted to show me his PCB layout and in all seriousness insisted on looking at it in the 3D view. The kids these days …

Anyway, I raise my glass to all who contributed to the release. :beer: THANK YOU!

I use the 3d viewer as an extension to the viewing methods. (For me it is easier to see silk screen problems in the 3d viewer.)

The main use for me is to export the complete board to freecad and design my housing there. (Or via freecad to Catia and let a mechanical engineer take care of the housing.)

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I did raise this a while ago

+1
I always start the layout after having placed the footprints and 3d models in the board using the 3d viewer to check collisions, before start any routing…

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I’m certain this has been discussed before, but for whatever reason I can’t find it. Is there a place where instructions for updating to the new release (including all necessary library updates) can be found? I have plenty of bandwidth and disk space and am a beginner, so I prefer to use stable version with standard libraries be they online or locally installed. (Windows 10 x64 user, if it matters)

It’s been a while since I downloaded and installed a KiCAD package (I’m running a nightly build from back in February), but . . .

Go to the download page at KiCAD Download Page and download the appropriate installation package to a convenient location. The file is BIG, so it may take a minute or two.

Close the KiCAD program manager window, and any KiCAD programs that may be running.

Double-click on the downloaded file (it will have an " *.exe " extension) to start the installation. I think there’s a menu where you tell the installer whether or not to install libraries, “Help” files, examples, etc. I always installed all of 'em. The installer will install the new version on top of the old version, AND CLOBBER ANY EXISTING OFFICIAL FOOTPRINT OR SYMBOL FILES THAT YOU MAY HAVE MODIFIED!

Installation takes a few minutes. Play a round of “Minesweeper” while you wait.

There are plenty of posts on this Forum explaining how to set up KiCAD to use local libraries (either clones of the online Github libraries, or your own libraries). Search them out if you need help configuring KiCAD to work in this mode.

Dale

I can not build this one , from git launchpad.net, github as well.

But I can build the stable release 4.0.6 with gcc-4.2.4

You need to look at the KiCad mailing list for clues. 4.0.7 is using some old versions of boost and other libraries, that cause some build headaches on modern Linux.

That sounds pretty straight forward, from something I read above I thought there was something tricky about updating 3D model libraries.