General software thoughts V5.0.2

Layout
1

Hello,

In PCBnew, the default line width for most drawings seems to be 0.15mm which is rather large for my needs, especially edge cuts and both dimension lines and texts. Would it be possible to set this to say .01mm as default, maybe in setup or even in the KiCad startup page? I find that now the dimension function automatically resets itself to the default 0.15mm each time it is opened. In V4 it remembered the settings for the project. I have tried saving the project preferences but that does not store the dimension width setting.

Alternatively can these values be set in any of the runtime files that are associated with Kicad by a little editing of the text files?

It is nice to see the “move exactly” function from V4 and “position relative to” function new to V5. Also the create array is handy.

2

You should try 5.1 as soon as you can. There’s File->Board Setup->Text & Graphics where you can set the defaults.

Move Exactly and Position Relative To have changed after 5.0.2.

3

@eelik I just moved to V5.1 and the text size can be set, say, for the User Comments layer to add board dimensions, but the dimension line width remains at default, and now cannot be edited in the line properties, or so it seems.
Previous versions set the dimension line width to the same as the text size so I usually set it to .01mm and that gave a sufficiently fine line to see the end point accurately.

Drawing line widths can be set for the layers, it just seems that the dimension line width is fixed.

On the other hand, it is a big improvement of V5.0.x. with some useful new features (or ones I never found in V5.0.x)

4

This is interesting. If you open a board with a dimension made with 5.0 in 5.1, is the width always the same in both? 5.0 and 5.1 should always interpret everything in the same way. If not, it’s a clear bug.

5

@eelik. I have not tried that one yet. From what I remember the width could be changed but only on a single dimension at a time, so if the horizontal measurement was made, and set to .01mm text width, the line changed as well, but then when the vertical measurement was made the line had reverted to .15mm.

The line weight now seems not to be editable at all. I will check from a 5.0 project and get back on that point.

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