Comments in Pl_Editor Items not Saved

Layout
1

Hi,

using KiCad 5.1.9 on Windows 10.

Each item in the page layout also has a comment field in its properties which, are displayed in the Pl_Editor.
Entries in this field are not transferred to the * .kicad_wks file when the layout is saved.

I have empirically determined that comments are allowed in the syntax of the * .kicad_wks file.
I added comments to the items manually.
These will also be used when loading the Page Layout file and displayed in Pl_Editor.
After saving this file, however, all comments are lost again.

(page_layout
(setup (textsize 1.5 1.5)(linewidth 0.15)(textlinewidth 0.15)
(left_margin 10)(right_margin 5)(top_margin 5)(bottom_margin 5))
(rect (name rect1:Rect) (start 5 5 ltcorner) (end 5 5) (linewidth 0.35) (comment “Inner border”))
(rect (name rect2:Rect) (start 0 0 ltcorner) (end 0 0) (linewidth 0.7) (comment “Outer border”))
)

PL_Comments

Greetings
Hubert

2

First:
The pl editor is the most un-developed part of KiCad. It’s a primitive application with very few features.

Second:
I don’t like the comment thing much. I find it a waste of valuable drawing space.

The comment section of the page is not meant to be filled in in the PL Editor.
You can fill in this text, and other parts of the title block in: Eeschema / File / Page Settings

3

Thanks for the fast answer.

First:
I know.

Second:
What you like is a personal matter. I questioned the behavior of the software.
Storage space and loading times were still an argument in the generation of 250MB hard disks and 16MHz processors, but no longer today.

I didn’t mean the comments in the page settings (%Cx) of a schematic or a PCB layout, but the comment field of each item in the page layout (lines, fixed texts, rectangles, etc.).
If you do not save it, you can also omit the input field. Then there is no confusion.

Hubert

4

I apologize for not reading your post carefully enough before answering.
My 2nd point was also not about disk space, but about paper space. The title block (and thick border also) takes a big chunk out of the A4 drawing space, while it does not add much usefulness.

5

Different users have different requirements.
The hobbyist can choose a free form, a professional user will probably have to adhere to documentation standards.
Therefore the Page Layou Editor is not a useless tool.

I agree, with regard to the use of space, every frame is a waste.
If there is not enough space, you can also choose the next largest paper format.
Today, in most cases you will print to PDF and work with the documents on the screen.
The use of paper documents is declining.

Back to the initial post.
It irritated me that

  • the software accepts a “comment” tag in the properties of an item in the * .kicad_wks file,
  • in the GUI of Pl_Editors an input field for a comment exists,
  • When loading the file into the PI editor, this field is correctly filled with the string from the “comment” tag

but that this string is not saved back at the end.

This doesn’t seem logical to me, so I suspect a bug or a forgotten action while processing the page layout file.

Hubert

6

Hubert,
I’d suggest you open a bug report about this. You seem to have a good example, and if you can simplify it even more, all the better.

Also, if you can try the nightly version and see if the bug is there too, that might be an answer.

Then, you could also propose a couple of patches, one of which would be to remove the comment box from the tool, so that there isn’t an option to do them any more.

Fixing the tool to actually write and parse comments properly would be harder I suspect, but maybe not. I don’t have any experience with Kicad source or development.

John

7

I didn’t find a report for this, but it has been fixed today in the master branch (for 5.99, the unstable development version leading to v6). I don’t know if it’s planned to be picked to 5.1 branch, too.

8

Thanks for the information.
I didn’t immediately have the opportunity to try out the 5.99 or a nightly build in parallel with my productive version.
I did not expect a correction in the 5.1 branch.
If the new version behaves correctly, it’s ok.

thanks

9

I would argue that the comment field for the individual objects in the layout can be useful (for example) to keep track of what each line does. It is only a single text box on a requestor (so doesn’t take much space) and if the comment isn’t used it doesn’t need to be saved to the file.

10

[225_2] SembazuruCDE
May 4

# l8gravely:

Then, you could also propose a couple of patches, one of which would be to remove the comment
box from the tool, so that there isn’t an option to do them any more.

I would argue that the comment field for the individual objects
in the layout can be useful (for example) to keep track of what
each line does. It is only a single text box on a requestor (so
doesn’t take much space) and if the comment isn’t used it
doesn’t need to be saved to the file.

But that’s the exact problem, this comment isn’t saved with your
project.

11

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. Good to hear from @eelik that it has been fixed in the master branch that will be finally revealed when v6 drops. We’ll just have to be patient until then (I don’t see anything like this mentioned in the bugfix list for 5.1.10 that just dropped).

12

It was fixed in the master branch after 5.1.10 was tagged.

1 Like
13

Sorry, I wasn’t reading your message closely enough. It might be that finding the fix on the master branch might give some hints on how to approach fixing this in the 5.1.x branch as well. Maybe I’ll try this some day, but the weather is getting nice here finally. grin

1 Like
14

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