I am testing out KiCAD V5.99 with one of the recent nighties, and I found the following which I don’t know if they are bugs or just how things should be done now.
In schematic or board editor, clicking a part now selects but does not drag. There seems to be a setting in preferences that allows to return to the old behavior of click to automatically move.
Hovering a mouse over a part and pressing M key (move), dose not select the part to allow it to be moved
C hotkey renamed to break out bust instead of duplicate part.
Hovering over a part and pressing C (Duplicate part) no longer works even after changing hotkey back to V5.1 configuration. Part must be selected and CTL+C and CTL+V must now be used.
Selecting a net with “Show Net”, and then pressing escape to exit “Show Net” mode does not clear net selection. Have to renter “Show Net” mode, click empty space schematic, and then exit “Show Net” mode to clear net selection.
Grid settings don’t save in eeschema after exiting. Must reset grid each time
Default grid spacing has changed. In the past was 50mil, now looks to be 20mil. Also snapping now occurs with minor grid and not just major grid.
Layer selections do not save after closing and reopening PCB.
Same as 7, but with copper pour visibility settings (solid, outlines, etc…)
Interactive Routing has some very odd behavior. Follow me no longer backtracks if mouse location changed.
Routing traces can sometime be allowed to touch other traces and not respect trace clearance.
DRC does not pick the above up either.
These are some issues that I have found so far. Overall I have been very happy with the release. Many improvements are very nice (buses colored traces to name a few).
This is the “First hotkey selects tool” option in Preferences > Common
Hovering over a part and pressing C (Duplicate part) no longer works even after changing hotkey back to V5.1 configuration. Part must be selected and CTL+C and CTL+V must now be used.
I just tried and using the default shortcut Ctrl+D, Duplicate still works for me
Selecting a net with “Show Net”, and then pressing escape to exit “Show Net” mode does not clear net selection. Have to renter “Show Net” mode, click empty space schematic, and then exit “Show Net” mode to clear net selection.
This is by design, so you can highlight a net and then use other tools while keeping the net highlighted
Grid settings don’t save in eeschema after exiting. Must reset grid each time
Default grid spacing has changed. In the past was 50mil, now looks to be 20mil. Also snapping now occurs with minor grid and not just major grid.
These are both bugs, please report them
Layer selections do not save after closing and reopening PCB.
This also would be a bug, but I can’t reproduce it, please open an issue with your design if possible
Regarding your last points about DRC and the interactive router, these are still heavily being worked on, there are lots of known issues that have been fixed recently and lots more still to fix.
However, Duplicate doesn’t seem to be a “tool”, so it works only after selecting the item first, it’s doesn’t select even when the “First hotkey selects tool” option is on.
Which means that the net isn’t selected, it’s highlighted. That’s an important distinction.
I’ll create a minimum design and submit that to reproduce the layers issue.
All also submit eeschema bugs that I found along with minimum working examples. I will also test with the normal color scheme.
For highlight net, would it make sense to clear the selection if escape is pressed? I understand if in highlight mode and using the mouse or other shortcuts should keep the net highlighted, but pressing escape should put the system back to its default state, as is done with move, grab, measure, and other modes of operation.
For the duplicate, I guess it was more copy. In prior versions I was able to press C above a component in eeschema and it would copy the part and instantly and clicking anywhere would place the copied part. Muscle memory seems to say the shortcut was C or at least it was a single key and not 2.
The problem is that escape is used for canceling other operations, and we want you to be able to do other operations while you still have a net highlighted. We could add a “clear highlight” hotkey though.
I think a configurable option in preferences, like with move/select or the “First hotkey selects tool" would be best. This way the behavior can be enabled or disabled by the user.
In schematic or board editor, clicking a part now selects but does not drag. There seems to be a setting in preferences that allows to return to the old behavior of click to automatically move.
Hovering a mouse over a part and pressing M key (move), dose not select the part to allow it to be moved
C hotkey renamed to break out bust instead of duplicate part.
Hovering over a part and pressing C (Duplicate part) no longer works
To be clear, most of this is getting eeschema away from acting like a special snowflake. In CAD software, clicking on an object doesn’t drag it – it selects it. Then you pick your preferred action. And in other software, “C” is never the shortcut for duplicate – it’s always D or Ctrl-D. These changes are making eeschema more coherent with pcbnew and other cad/design software so that KiCad is easier to approach for new users.
