This seems like a basic question. I am making a footprint with a rectangular polygon on the silkscreen layer. This rectangle fills solid and I cannot figure out how to prevent it from filling? Do I need to avoid closing it? (In other words do I need to avoid connecting the finish exactly to the start? Is that the only way?)
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Don’t use the rectangle tool but the line tool to create it?
Or try the context menu once created (Right Mouse Button) and see if there is an option to deactivate the fill…
Don’t have KiCAD open right now, option #1 works 100% though.
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Thanks a lot, Joan. Like most of my other posts/complaints, this one is not a show stopper. But I felt that a rectangle should not be filled in a silkscreen unless I choose that as an option. I did try context menu & everything I could think of to find such option. I looked back at some of the other footprints I had made, and I did not find any previous ones where I had used a closed polygon. So it is a surprise but not a big problem. One other related point is that I used the CTRL key when drawing the polygon to draw perpendicular sides most easily.
Not supported by the file format at this point in time. I am not sure if it will ever be added.
This works with any tool. And it even works when you later edit the element.
Mh like what do you expect a rectangle to be on any layer? Anything but fully filled would not be a rectangle, wouldn’t it?
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No Detzi, This is the case where we prevent the rectangle from filling.
So what would you call an unfilled rectangle?
We can argue about the terminology here until hell freezes over but it will not change the current feature set of KiCad.
The benefit of the polygon tool (that sadly only allows filled shapes) is that the endpoints of the line segments stay connected when you move them. I would assume that sometime in the future similar behaviour is possible with general shapes (so lines and arcs) but until then we need to live with what we have.
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I don’ understand what you try to say.
How can it be unfilled? Do you mean just the border lined out? Do you mean a border around a rectangle, or the border itsself?
I don’t wanted to argue about terminology. I wasn’t sure if i do understand the problem right. Knowing other tools there a specialized buttons that allow drawing a rectangle. They are always filled and that with good reason. The same goes for the polygons.
If @BobZ wants a rectangle-border the line tool is the right option.
I recognize that even this post sounds like i’m a jerk…but i really didn’t mean it that way. What i actually wanted to say is:
What do you need it for, having “line style rectangular” shapes makes no sense in 99% of use cases and there is maybe a better way to solve it. If i am wrong i would like you to share your problem so i can learn from it.
I am surprised you struggle with that concept. A rectangle, as a mathematical shape, is defined as a border. It’s just four lines. There is no concept of filling. You can check with google 
I was just wondering what you call “4 lines arranged as a box but not filled” if not a rectangle. “Rectangle-border” seems to be a new English word you have coined - possibly a language difference?
When it comes to CAD in general, rectangles can be drawn with or without fill, and with or without border outline. But there is no requirement that a rectangle is always filled, nor there is a special name given to “filled rectangles” or “unfilled rectangles”.
Of course, Rene is right, KiCad is what it is. Draw borders with lines, and filled shapes with the polygon tool.
I am quite sure we all understand each other quite well. Fine call it rectangle, i already admitted that i just started all wrong, i wrote what crossed my mind…
Well, I confess I don’t understand when you say “What do you need it for, having “line style rectangular” shapes makes no sense in 99% of use cases”. In my experience, on the silkscreen, 99% of the time an outline is used, not a filled poly.
In English usage, a “rectangle” is a border, that is not just my opinion!
Okay now i think i know what i was missing. 
The point here is that @BobZ wants the rectangle tool to change behaviour on the silk layer to a line stile mode. I thought of all the layers as a 3D thing, of course also of the silkscreen since it also needs a line thickness. 
Sometimes i am a bit special. After all i added to the thread title quite a bit. thanks @bobc fore bearing with me!
Gosh this one got a lot of discussion going. Thanks, everyone.
I think that bobc nailed it.
A rectangle or trapezoid (or triangle or pentagon or dodecagon (if that is a shape) is defined as a closed shape formed by the correct number of lines; nothing about fill. So I was surprised that I had no choice about fill when drawing a rectangle. I figured I was missing the place where I needed to uncheck the “fill” option.
Of course this would not apply to drawing SMT pads, as we all expect pads to be solid filled for soldering.
So anyway, the point is “No, I did not miss anything. Polygons fill and I need to use lines if I do not want fill.”
It would be convenient to be able to draw a (I choose filled or unfilled) rectangle and numerically type in the length, width, and line thickness. That can serve as an additional guide for placing pads. This is not a high priority requirement…
And, if I hope to move the polygon as a complete entity, I must accept that it will be filled. If it is not filled, I have to move the polygon line-by-line.
Dale
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