If you develop Python plugins for KiCad, this message is for you!
First of all, as you have probably seen, the new Python API won’t be included in KiCad 6.0. We still want to support the existing SWIG API that allows the creation of action plugins in the PCB editor and external scripts, but there have been some changes to the API between 5.1 and now due to underlying code changes in KiCad. We have already been fixing some regressions in the SWIG API that should make it possible to port your plugins to 6.0.
We need your help to test out your plugins and make any changes needed for the 6.0 API, so that we can identify and fix any remaining regressions from 5.1 before the December 15 deadline. If you have any trouble getting your scripts to work in 6.0 RC1, please open an issue on GitLab and we will assist. It is important to us that existing plugins are able to continue to work.
Second, the new Plugin and Content Manager (PCM) is working and our new public plugin repository is open for submissions. If you weren’t already aware, this feature provides an easy way for KiCad users to discover and install your plugins. We highly encourage all plugin developers to submit your plugins to the repository once they are compatible with KiCad 6.0. More information about this process is documented on the dev-docs site. Please get in touch if you have any questions, we’d like to help.
Since the new python API won’t be included, do we already have any tool/script or any other way to export schematics to .svg as we can do for layouts, without using GUI, in this new version?
There is no change from V5.1 when it comes to Python support for the schematic editor: there is none. If there is some third-party tool that generates SVG files from schematics in 5.1, I don’t see why it couldn’t be adapted to do the same in V6. It just depends on how that tool is implemented (for example, if it is directly reading the schematic files and generating new graphics from them; it will have to update to the new file format). I’m not aware of such a tool but maybe it is out there?
Alright. This is exactly what I was thinking. There is this awesome tool plotkicadsch that does that for .sch files. @jnavila , the author of the tool, was planning to not implement this new file parser if this would land on Kicad 6.0. But of course, knowing it now shows it makes sense to have such a feature implemented on plotkicadsch too. to be fair it looks like he has such implementation going on under the hood. But anyway, thanks for letting us know.
One more thing. Do we have a reference of the new .kicad_sch format somewhere?
Wayne is working on it and it should be ready by release.