Common properties edit box / edit groups of items with common properties

[ThantiK]

In a lot of other editing mediums, if I select multiple components and they have a shared set of properties then I can set all of those properties as a group.

An example of this is silk screen text. If I select a single silk-screen text, I can edit all of its properties. If I select multiple then I can’t edit anything. I have to go by-hand and edit each and every one. If I have 20, 50, 100 labels that I want to be less thick lettering, or I want it to be taller, wider, shorter…this results in a ton of work.

I’d like to request a feature that allows a properties dialog to be built based on the common properties of all selected items. So if I select silk that says “GND” “D+” “D-” “5V”, then I can edit the properties of all of them at once. Maybe I want to make sure they all share the same X coordinate. There are a lot of things all across KiCad that could use this treatment. Changing the footprints of multiple components at a time, etc.

[eelik]

V5.1:
In the layout editor you group edit certain things.

1. Selected tracks and vias: context menu → Properties.
2. Tracks and vias: Edit → Edit Track & Via Properties.
3. Text and graphics items: Edit → Edit Text & Graphics Properties.

There may be something else, but possibilities are limited. You can try selecting objects of the same type and see if you can open Properties.

In the future for v6.0 there are plans for real property editing.

EDIT:

KiCad v6 Donation Campaign

[bobc]

@ThantiK

I’d like to request a feature that allows a properties dialog to be built based on the common properties of all selected items.

I’d like that too, and it seems a significant omission. Instead there are number of different global editing tools, but at least now they mostly in the same place. None of them AFAIK operate on the current selection.

E.g for Silk Screen text there is the “Edit Text & Graphics Properties” dialog (in Edit menu), which is quite powerful but doesn’t allow to operate on the current selection, which seems like it would be easy to add.