Group Kicad Projects in Taskbar So Toggling Between Projects is Easier

[JayShoe]

I’m here to suggest a feature, and to receive feedback and/or workarounds. I often have 3+ projects open at a time because I’m working on a multi-board project. What this means is that I have a PCB Layout, Schematic, and Kicad Project window open for each project. So therefore I’ll have 6, 9, or even 12 windows open at a time.

Currently all 12 windows are grouped into one Kicad icon on the taskbar, and clicking on the icon will show all twelve windows in a row so I can choose which window I want to open.

Currently, it’s ordered by which window was opened first. So if you open one project, then open another, then open a PCB on one project, and then open a schematic on another, the windows will be in order of opening them… (as opposed to grouping by project). Opening the footprint editor, 3d viewer, or Schematic Symbol Editor will also result in another window - at the end of the picker.

My feature request is to group up the project’s windows into one “group” of icons rather than placing all 12 windows in one group of icons. So for each project, create a new group of icons. This would mean that I would have 4 Kicad icons on my taskbar, with 3 windows under each (Project, PCB, and Schematic). And when I open a footprint editor or schematic symbol editor for example, it too would show up under the related project.

I believe this would make my workflow easier to manage, so that I don’t have to search 12 windows each time. Sure, it wouldn’t be labeled, but I would quickly get used to which project is where. Also, I also just checked and Windows lets you order the taskbar icons (but NOT the windows underneath) so it would definitely be an upgrade.

Regardless, ordering the windows (as opposed to the taskbar icons) inside the grouped taskbar icon by project would be a different workaround feature request because at least the projects would be together rather than being unordered. Take a look at my screenshot and how the “io_board” or “front_panel” (for example) is spread throughout the window picker display.

TLDR; Group the taskbar icons by project (as opposed to Kicad only grouping)… Alternatively, please at least sort the windows by project name.

I’m on Windows 10.

Application: KiCad x64 on x64

Version: (7.0.0), release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.1
	FreeType 2.12.1
	HarfBuzz 5.0.1
	FontConfig 2.14.1
	libcurl/7.83.1-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.13

Platform: Windows 10 (build 19045), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
	Date: Feb 12 2023 01:35:19
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
	Boost: 1.80.0
	OCC: 7.6.2
	Curl: 7.83.1-DEV
	ngspice: 39
	Compiler: Visual C++ 1934 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
	KICAD_SPICE=ON