Help me understand block dragging?

[BobZ]

@eelik

Eeschema works like that in nightly builds.

Sounds excellent. Thanks!

[BobZ]

Here is another example which does not work as expected. This is not a block, but I have connected a ground power symbol to an IC just by moving it there. Then when I drag it away (hoping to get a visible wire; similar to “rubber banding” in other EDA tools) the IC symbol glues to the ground symbol and moves with it.

[kenyapcomau]

I can’t tell from the highlight colours in the second action but its possible you had an additive selection and the GND was added to the amp so two symbols were selected. What if you clear the selection in between with ESC? Though you shouldn’t have to methinks.

[Rene_Poschl]

I think you expect that dragging the ground symbol would add a wire. KiCad does not work that way (at least not now).

KiCads way can be used for good. Think of the situation turned around.
Example if you have both power supply pins directly connected to a power symbol. You can now move the OPA together with the power symbols if you need to.

[JeffYoung]

The nightly builds do add a wire.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[BobZ]

@kenyapcomau

I can’t tell from the highlight colours in the second action but its possible you had an additive selection and the GND was added to the amp so two symbols were selected. What if you clear the selection in between with ESC? Though you shouldn’t have to methinks.

I tried doing this several times. Mostly just clicking on the ground symbol but also just identifying it alone with a small block. The results always the same.

@Rene_Poschl

I think you expect that dragging the ground symbol would add a wire. KiCad does not work that way (at least not now).

KiCads way can be used for good. Think of the situation turned around.
Example if you have both power supply pins directly connected to a power symbol. You can now move the OPA together with the power symbols if you need to.

Yes I can see that would be a useful capability. But if I wanted to do that, my first thought would be to block the op amp together with the power symbols and drag or move all together.

@JeffYoung

The nightly builds do add a wire.

Between this comment and another previous…I think maybe I should install the newest nightly. (few minutes elapsed) Now I did so. Sort of funny I would not expect to immediately see the difference but right away I see it. First impression is that I like the way identified symbols light up. And yes I get “rubber banding” when repeating what I showed in my last .gif. So this looks pretty good.

Application: Eeschema
Version: (5.99.0-657-g792e841ec), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.66.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1d (Schannel) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.1.1) nghttp2/1.39.2
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Build date: Jan 7 2020 22:27:11
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.71.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.66.0
Compiler: GCC 9.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Rene_Poschl]

• Is it a good idea to use a nightly build version?