Just downloaded V5.1.0 for Windoze and the projects that made use of the hidden pin feature now no longer have a net connection. The option for hidden pins is still present in the Symbol Editor.
Is this now the expected behavior?
ON EDIT: ON SECOND EDIT: Retract the first edit. A library change in V5.1.0 to the GND symbol threw me off.
Guess my edits were confusing.
The original query still remains. Is it now expected behavior that hidden pins no longer connect in Eeschema?
What do you mean with no longer connect?
There was no change in how any pins behave. Hidden power input pins work the same as they always did. (They are still global labels otherwise power symbols would not work.)
Stacking pins still works as it always did (All pins in the stack are connected)
And one can even connect an invisible pin using a wire if one does choose to do so.
I am not certain exactly what happened, but one of the hidden GND pins on a symbol triggered an ERC Flag and message that it was not connected.
I added a direct GND symbol connection to the pin and then ran ERC which gave the root cause of the issue; the very common ErrType(3). Somehow managed to delete the PwrFlag on the GND net without noticing.
@Rene_Poschl Thank you very much for the time you spent to reply. The error message really lead me in the wrong direction and your post turned me around to look for other issues.
This used to read:
ErrType(3): Pin connected to some others pins but no pin to drive it
Why was the Error type number removed from the message?
Also, Why did the ERC prioritize the Hidden Pins in my design?
The error number does not really add useful information for users. Yes it means the documentation including yours will need to be updated but that is progress.
In the distant past designers of software needed to care about storage space. Long strings for error messages take up a considerable number of bytes (approximately one byte per letter ) This is why they only displayed error numbers and the user needed to look in a printed manual what that number represents. It seems the ERC messages still had part of this design philosophy in them. I think it is for the better that it has gone away.
It is however strange that it points to the passive pin (on the connector) instead of the power input pin (of the regulator) for the source of the error. (The error message does not even mention that the power input pin of U1 is what is to blame.)
I can not replicate that behavior but your L7805b symbol might be a personal one. Could you share your file?
Here is what i get:
What do you mean with
Edit: I found strange behavior while investigating this. Reported as https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1821436 (KiCad seems to sometimes report power symbols as the source of error instead of reporting the real power input pin of the regulator. This happened when i added a stacked pin under pin 1 of the voltage regulator. I seem to remember that version 4 was already similar with this but i never bothered to report it.)
The error number disambiguates between different errors that otherwise may be expressed or translated in different ways. It is my opinion that the error number should return to eliminate any and all forms of possible disambiguation.
It may be a few more days before I have the time to go back and check out what tripped me up on a project that was thought to be already completed.
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