I think both of those issues are solvable.
I love to hear your solution, as my 60 year old Swiss cheese brain 
has not figured a way around the problems.
Lachlan
1 Like
I handle labels by moving them to the nearest point in the same net. There are probably some cases I have missed, but it seems to work so far.
For text, it can be rendered to polylines using one of the Hershey fonts, which is a set of public domain vector fonts. (nothing to do with chocolate 
)
For info, the project I am trying to convert and using as a test case is WebRadio v3 https://github.com/watterott/WebRadio/tree/master/hardware/v3.
As my program can only read the XML files, that is a limitation. Older Eagle projects need Eagle installed to convert to XML, and I’m not sure Autodesk will continue with the open format, so I see it as a complementary tool.
I mis-spoke regarding Autodesk backtracking - there are some underground patches to remove protection, possibly illegally, but not authorised by Autodesk.
I worked with https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE
try testing your software on there designs as they very interesting stuff, you will find that nearest point will fail for net’s
labels, as quite often you will have no net name’s Lables in Eagle, and will have to generate them, and place them
in the converted sch file, which of course make’s it look completely diffident. And on a complex and very tightly
spaced sch file’s that Olimex design adding extra net labels will look like a mess. Also Olimex do some interesting stuff
with there lib’s, and extracting them from sch file quite often ended up wrong, like put stuff on layers which should never
be there. And which KiCad will not be happy with. So use Olimex as your test bed, they gave me the most trouble.
Oh put your stuff up on github, then other people can test and give feed back. I found github invaluable for finding problems, as there is always some one who will find some thing your missed.
Lachlan
1 Like
: Eagle is simply awful, they would be doing the world a favor by killing this shining example of a user-hostile UI.
3 Likes
The Eagle UI has fossilized for a long time. KiCad has been tweaked to be far more consistent and logical than it used to be. Not perfect, but no CAD software is
Nothing is perfect. There are always trade-offs to be made. (And the definition of perfect might be different for every users workflow.)
2 Likes
Hi bobc,
May I ask you what is the programming language you used for the converter? Perhaps it could be converted to an eeschema plugin, so Eagle schematics could be directly opened in KiCad.
That would be a huge gain for the project, as the transition process would be smooth without involving any CLI spells. We already handle Eagle boards & footprint libraries in pcbnew, and since some time we are looking into doing the same for the schematics part.
You are welcome to join (preferably) the developer mailing list [1] or the IRC channel [2] in case you would like to discuss the opportunities.
- https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
- #kicad@freenode.net: https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23kicad
Hi folks, I’m a new KiCAD user as of this weekend, ditching Eagle just as OP predicted. 
I’m working on my first project now after having finished a tutorial. Wow, the UI is so much better than Eagle. Overall I’m thinking this is going to be great.
My only rant is in find parts/footprints. I really, really, really don’t understand why any software today would ever lack a simple keyword search to sift through 4800+ parts. A wimpy single letter tap to jump to a point in a list of 4800 items is extremely pathetic, to put it nicely. Unless I not only know the exact part I want, AND what group or category it was bucketed into, AND know exactly how it happens to be named by this particular app (which I sure wouldn’t) start to end, I’m screwed. This is taking FOREVER trying to find footprints I need, even for a simple resistor (kazillions of choices to pick from via loooong scrollbox), etc.
Anyway, everything else IMO feels superior to Eagle. Really looking forward to getting in to this.
1 Like
It’s written in C#. I try to avoid C++ as much as possible.
I am not volunteering to be KiCad developer, but I might take a look at the plugin stuff when it is released.
The Eeschema has instant search in Add component window.
The CvPcb already has a set of working base filters and user filter feature not yet released officially.
I had an ok time finding parts as you demonstrated with Eeschema, but a miserable time for PCB footprints. Why doesn’t “a” work for add footprint shortcut key in CvPcb? Why is the dialog so drastically different and limited? I don’t see a keyword filter in Select by Browser where you can see a preview. Consistency lacking. Seems like a huge UX issue IMHO.
Wishes/bugs/issues can be reported here https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bugs
CERN donation might also help. https://giving.web.cern.ch/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=6
The nightly build version already has a keyword search in cvpcb (The tool for assigning footprints to symbols). I bet this will be included in the next major release aswell.
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I’m an Eagle user too. Altium’s meddling is my reason for being here.
Some translation needed then as KiCad is multi-platform and I don’t think a Mono dependency would be popular
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Hmm, one of the things that should be on the list (that works fine in Eagle) is:
- the ability to create random copper footprints (useful for RF and microstrip circuits)
3 Likes
Agree, it’s a major problems that I can’t fix in the import script, or only party fix, with a very nasty hack.
Where I convert via’s to pads, as both track’s, and via’s loss the net info if there are not connected to a pad with a track.
Lachlan