Eeschema: fill in graphical shapes?

On EEVBLOG Channel, I saw something beautiful yesterday. I needed this since a while and I didn’t know it was implemented somewhere.

In Altium, you can draw polygons in the schematics (as in KiCAD we do) BUT you can also filled them in with custom color.

Checking for this feature and/or plugin that can add this feature to KiAD, I discovered the 6.0.0 was just released.
I installed it, and aside the couple of bugs I got
https://forum.kicad.info/t/kicad-6-0-all-the-3d-models-are-not-loaded/32664/6

There is not any improvement about graphic features. Everything seems identical to 5.1.12

is there any way/plugin/mode/else to get this feature please?

This will be available in KiCad 7.x

It seems Jeff has already implemented it in nightlies (see https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/5953), so if you’d like to test it, download the nightly version of KiCad (6.99) to try it out.

On windows these are available at https://downloads.kicad.org/kicad/windows/explore/nightlies

ah ok but it means it will be available in some year form now, since from 5 to 6 where not few months :-/

If I remember correctly, the developers (Wayne?) have stated that the intention is to have yearly major releases, so 7.0 would be by the end of 2022.

In approximately 1 year from now. See the new release policy here: https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/rules-guidelines/release-policy/

We need testers to test features like this, so I encourage you to download nightly and test the feature to make sure it works as expected. If you notice any issues please open a bug report.

@Qbort if I can install it without interfering with the main installation, I will do it

@tormyvancool it shouldn’t affect your existing configuration. 6.99 gets its own separate configuration folder.

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Perhaps you already know (and quite apart from the Version used) you can place a Graphic into Eeschema and overlay it on a Symbol…

Quick-Crude Example below

@BlackCoffee yes I know it. But it’s not what I meant and need.
I would like to have this (as I sadi opening the thread): :slight_smile:

@Qbort I installed the 6.99
I opened a schematic
YES there is the option under “Place” menu.
This is what I needed.
Defect: the fill in is not with right click. It doesn’t exist EDIT. You need to click on the shape then press E … but you don’t know since it’s not written. Just discovered casually
Defect: When you click on APPLY it doesn’t. You need to click OK to see the result
Missing: the polygon. You can’t design polygons THEN edit them to fill them in.
it’s a pity there is not yet on a stable version as the 6.0.0

3D models are not leaded however. Bug still present as put in evidence here:

Oh no, another one with boxes all over his schematic.
I once tried that, but it does not help to make your schematic more readable, (The yellow background does seem to help, but at the same time it obfuscates the yellow backgrounds of the schematic symbols). Those boxes are also hard to maintain. Every time you make a small change in the schematic after that, you spend more time in resizing those boxes than on the actual change. Leaving a bit of whitespace in between those schematic sections makes the sections easier to recognize then those boxes, and is also much easier to maintain in the long run.

Davey Jones should be put back in his locker.

The big blue text is good though. I do it in a very similar way. The big text makes the different schematic sections easy to recognize.

@paulvdh imagine or not, this is a feature I was looking for since ever. And I even didn’t know that Altium has it.
I do such operation when diagrams are finished forever. Not certainly during engineering.
If a feature there is, it can be used or not depending to your workflow.

If there is not, there is not any way to use it when you need it.
That makes the difference.

To add them and to make the fill-in adaptable, changing color when needed and so on, it’s great.
I don’t see any point to have delayed this for years :slight_smile: Since I discovered today, that this request is there since long ago.

Rule n.1: let’s work people as they need to work,. Don’t cut them tools “just because” … :wink: since it’s a tool like nay other, and since it should make our life easier following our own workflow. Not an imposed one :slight_smile:

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So that means it is to no use for yourself?
And to be able to draw the squares, you first have to separate and dived your schematic more into rectangular area’s.

For your next project, just for comparison try to keep track how much time you spend in dividing your schematic into rectangles and drawing the rectangles. I’ve done it myself for some time. In some way it “seemed to look nice” but it did not add anything REAL and took far to much time. It is your time though, not mine, so do as you wish.

@paulvdh I normally do on that way but it’s not always possible. And in that cases I want that feature because I find it excellent for these cases. It’ can’t be at your eyes, but at mine ones yes. It is :slight_smile:

Thanks for testing!

Could you please report these issues in gitlab (separate issue each) with steps to reproduce, so that the relevant developer can have a look and fix it? If it stays in this forum it will likely be forgotten.

To report an issue, you can just go to Help -> Report Bug. You’ll need to create a Gitlab account if not already.

image

@Qbort ok done here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/10140

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