I clicked on “mode track: autorouting”. Now I can’t get out. I did route some nets but now I can’t get out of the function. I click on the button again but nothing happens, I’m still in autoroute. How can I get out. The function is great and it saved me time. I saved my board, exited the program, then restarted the program, brought up my board and it’s still in autoroute mode. Also, is it normal for the board to look like there is a filter over it?
Terry
Click on any other tool to change from using the track routing tool OR hit escape to switch to the “pointer” tool which is probably what you are looking for. (It is the top button on the right toolbar)
What do you mean by the board looking like there is a filter? Can you take a screenshot and post it?
I’ve done that but when I do and then click on the “add tracks and vias” button, I get the large X pointer.
Terry
Do you mean the cross hair pointer? It looks like a big plus sign.
Yes, I can’t get out of that mode no matter what I do.
Here is a screenshot of what I’ve got. I’m guessing that the way it looks is because the track that is selected to be routed will be highlighted. But here is the screenshot.
I’m really confused here. You said you hit escape/switch to another tool, and then click on the add tracks and via button… and you say you end up in the tracks and via button.
Can you please be /extremely/ detailed in what exactly happens when you hit escape or switch to another tool?
If you don’t want to be that detailed at least provide a video of what is happening.
When I hit escape, it enables the pointing arrow. If I click on the “add tracks”, it brings up the BIG plus cursor, which tells me that it is still in autorouting mode. If I click on the autorouting button (top of screen where green and red crossbars are) , nothing happens.I’m still in autorouting mode and the BIG plus cursor is still there. If I again click on “escape”, I’m still in autorouting mode, that is, I can’t lay a normal track without the help of the autorouter. How do I lay a track without the help of the autorouter? Anytime I click on the “add tracks” button, I always get the BIG plus cursor. How do I get the normal small plus cursor?
Also, if I save the file, exit the program, restart the program, bring up the file, the BIG plus cursor is still there if I just click on the “add tracks” button.
If this doesn’t help, I’ll make a video tomorrow and show you.
Does this help?
Yes, that description is much better.
You are a bit confused about some of the buttons. I don’t blame you, the documentation hasn’t quite caught up to the code yet and there have been a LOT of changes since the last release.
The add tracks and vias tool has nothing to do with an autorouter. An autorouter is a tool that automatically routes ALL of the nets on a board without your input at all and they are pretty universally horrible. Ignore the autorouter button on the top tool bar, it is no good.
The add tracks and via tool is an interactive router (the specific part of what you are currently talking about is called a push and shove router) which means it tries to help you out by automatically doing small things as you move tracks and vias around. This is just how the tracks and via tool works in KiCad. You can adjust how it does stuff a little bit by right clicking and opening the interactive router settings.
Try watching this video to see how it works and the different things it can do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdfz_c5Mbrc
If you want to force tracks to go where you want then just click on a spot and it will anchor the track to that point. Kind of hard to explain, you should just try to play around with a little bit.
Thanks for the info. The push and shove router did help to get a few routes quickly done and by trial and error I was able to configure it. I see that all I needed to do was to press F9 to get back into default mode. I remember what I had done originally was to accidentally push F12 which then put me into push and shove mode, I called it autorouter mode, and I didn’t know how to get out of it. Maybe someone else will stumble onto this same situation and find out what happened and how to get out of it. It is a very handy function. Thanks for your patience and help.
Ok, but don’t get too used to switching back to the default mode. It will be going away in the next version!
If you want to turn off the interactive router, don’t switch back to “default” to do it - as reportingsjr says it will be going away…and it kinda sucks, too. 
Press E while in routing mode to access the routing options; you can turn off interactive behavior here (select “Highlight collisions”) and still use the new graphics/routing engine.
OK, thanks for the info.
