So, this is an interesting feature that came in my mind while working on a big board.
Kicad already has this feature where we click on a symbol and it is selected in the layout and in the 3d viewer too. The same happens if you select a footprint, the symbol gets selected.
This is a really good feature, indeed. But it works only with a single component.
It would be great if this could be expanded to multiple components.
So for instance, you select a circuit in the schematic, and all the parts present in that selection are then selected in the layout (and also in the 3d viewer).
In 6.99 multi-symbol selection highlighting works, but only schematic->board/3D Viewer.
Board->schematic is flawed. Selecting multiple footprints arbitrarily highlight only one symbol.
Maybe that’s a bug worth filing.
First off: I’m a hobbyist.
For professional work I would not use 6.99. There were changes in file formats and there is no way back if that happens.
This said: as a hobbyist with daily backups I use 6.99 and had no trouble making boards. IIRC there were rare instances where 6.99 was unusable and then only for one day.
I see, well I am a hobbyist too and thanks for the exmplanation.
Well, if there are file formats that are different and if maybe they can’t be reversed, this may be an issue if someone thinks of trying it on an existing, non-versioned project.
There is no way back from 6.99 to 6.0.x. It is explicitly development with absolutely no guarantees about stability of file format or features. While the nightly build does “just work” most of the time (often good enough for hobby work), new users hopefully are warned away by the explicit warnings on the download page.
If someone has a 6.0 project and opens it in 6.99 without version control, the best option is to look for the automatic backup folder in the project with zip files of an older state.
It is true that the file formats are not compatible, but I won’t be so harsh.
In the transition from KiCad V5 → V6 this was pretty much true because file formats completely changed to S-Expressions. I have not used V6.99 myself, but my best guess is that the file formats are pretty similar. KiCad’s files have a date string in the beginning, and normally KiCad simply refuses to open files from a future KiCad version.
To get an idea whether it’s doable to backport a KiCad V6.99 project to V6.0.x, you could take a KiCad V6.0 schematic, convert a copy of it to V6.99 and then use a diff tool to look at the changes.
I’m hoping that in some future KiCad version, there will be a possibility to backport the files, and KiCad would then simply dump all S-expressions it does not understand into a text file, but a feature like this is not high on the priority list. KiCad aims t become a tool fit for “professionals”, companies and “real work”. A feature like this is mostly useful for hobbyist and adventurers who want to experiment with the latest and greatest.
It is true that the s-expressions makes it easier to go backwards by hand if needed! I’ve also seen people on the forum talk about making a hacky version of KiCad that can open the current or next version and then use the saving code from the previous version to dump the features that work in both versions.
I guess my point is that there is no support for going backwards between file formats, since some of the cool new features from 6.99 don’t have obvious fall-backs.
@leoheck Back to the OP (selection highlighting). There are a few bugs in the current implementation, but I hold back with bug reports of that sort. It’s my own “internal” triage.
Given 1481 open issues as we speak, bugs of that kind might not be the most important thing in the KiCad world. But rest assured, I won’t forget.
Thanks for letting me know. I also do the same when I am working with circuits and PCBs.
I guess that was me, haha.
Sure, it may have bugs, and I understand that if the feature was already implemented it is more likely to proceed to a fix instead of having a new feature implemented.
Since we can have the selected item be highlighted Kicad-wide (even with bugs) it would be awesome if, in the future, it could expand this feature to have more parts selected at the same time.
This is why I brought the idea here, so we could check if it is interesting for someone else spite of just me.
As I already said: in 6.99 (and hence 7.0 down the road) you CAN select multiple symbols and the components will be highlighted in the board and 3d viewer. It’s the other direction that does not (yet?) work. That’s what I meant with buggy.
I’m sure that will be sorted out over time.
