Feature request: Naming track widths and via sizes

[craftyjon]

We use GitLab now: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/new?issue[assignee_id]=&issue[milestone_id]=

[cal-linux]

Could you please post a copy-n-pasted version info for 5.99 that exhibits that behaviour? I just opened the issue, but the bot closed it because it is missing the complte version info (and I have never used 5.99, so I can’t really generate it myself)

[paulvdh]

I do not know what to think of this:

@cal-linux

Selecting a ton of tracks in a certain area does not seem that useful (well, for the use case I was talking about; I can visualize many scenarios where this indeed highly useful).

@cal-linux

This would have brought the three days of work that I mentioned, maybe not to half-hour!

Could it be you have some left over frustrations from this job you need to vent?

I’m trying to imagine, what it would be to click on each track segment separately, then open a menu and set it’s track width to the net class value. That would build up some fatigue and frustrations over a few days in a complicated design.

The differences between U and I are only noticeable on complicated tracks that go to multiple IC’s and/or T-junctions.

I think it would be good for your KiCad knowledge to every now and then use some quality time to browse through KiCad’s menu’s and try out some functions you have never used before.
Look trough the shortcut keys list in KiCad / Preferences / Preferences / Hotkeys. Make some notes of shortcut keys that are useful to you.

Or just print out the cheatsheet, with a one page selection of most used shortcut keys:

Cheatsheet for KiCad

Hi, I’ve recently taught a few interested students how to use KiCad for their personnal projects, and compiled them a cheatsheet for the occasion. The idea is to sum up all the steps for making a board from A to Z (i.e. creating a new project to checking the gerbers) while giving the most important shortcuts. I guess it could probably be useful for other people to, so here it is : https://silica.io/static/downloads/kicad-cheatsheet.pdf Landscape version : https://silica.io/static/downloads/ki…

Another tip:
[Del] tries to guess what you want to delete, so with tracks it deletes up to the closest junction. However, when there is an active selection, it assumes you want to delete the selection. When you single click a track segment, it gets selected, and then [Del] only deletes that single segment.

To delete the left part of a long winding track, select a segment in the middle, [Del] it, then hover over the left part and [Del] again.

Pcbnew / Edit / Edit Track & Via Properties currently indeed refuses changes that would generate DRC errors, while if it just did it, you see nice big red arrows on the DRC errors to help you fix them. However, when you use the selection methods I described earlier, it just sets your selection to your new settings, even if it causes DRC errors, as you can see in my screenshots.

[cal-linux]

@paulvdh

Pcbnew / Edit / Edit Track & Via Properties currently indeed refuses changes that would generate DRC errors, while if it just did it, you see nice big red arrows on the DRC errors to help you fix them. However, when you use the selection methods I described earlier, it just sets your selection to your new settings, even if it causes DRC errors, as you can see in my screenshots.

But there is still a big, important missing piece: I cannot select all tracks that belong to a given net class (or to a set of net classes) and only those tracks (can I?). That is what I believe would be the more common/useful action (and in any case, it would be the alternative to the issue of Edit Track & Via not changing the items that would cause DRC violations)

[cal-linux]

@cal-linux

Could you please post a copy-n-pasted version info for 5.99 that exhibits that behaviour?

Thanks @craftyjon ‒ I see that you updated the issue directly!

[NIKHILRAMI]

I felt like changing all track widths in single design and that is while designing LED pcb for MCPCB. In some of the leds there is only anode and cathode through which led can dissipate heat and is transferred through MCPCB onto heatsink. So in that case I have to increase width of all the tracks connecting anode and cathode of all the led’s in series. In led’s with third pad to transfer heat we require area of the pad to be increased as much as possible. Along with that they all should remain isolated from each other.