This thread is about a change in the schematic editor window of kicad v8.99 (upcoming v9).
In the schematic editor window it’s possible to show some sidepanels (normally attached to the left side of the screen). These are:
- hierarchy navigator
- properties panel
- net navigator
Since some days/weeks the access to these sidepanels has changed.
Up until now these panels could be accessed:
- with hotkeys
- as main entry in the menubar–>View
- hierarchy navigator + properties panel had a dedicated icon on the left iconbar
- all sidepanels showed a dedicated cross-icon to close them
The current solution has:
- still the hotkeys
- the show/hide menu-entry was moved to a submenu main menubar–>View–>Panels
- the icons were removed from the left toolbar
- all closing crosses were removed from the panels
For my workflow this is regression in ease of use:
- kicad working setup: only one monitor system, with 15" or 17" monitor (laptop)
- to get a big working canvas I often switch between hiding/showing all side panels
- most used side panel: hierarchy navigator
- seldom used and therefore only displayed on demand: properties panel , net navigator
With the removal of the icons in the left toolbar the fast and easy on/off switching is gone, even more the way to use the View-menu slower with the new “panels” submenu.
I can imagine this change is no problem for users with >=60" monitors or setups with multiple monitors. On such a setup the panels are probably switched on all the time, so burying the show/hide options deeper in the GUI doesn’t bother these users.
So before opening a official gitlab complain I want to get some comments from others. Is this change useful, are you not affected from this or do you also think it’s a regression?