I am a software (C/C++ and a bit of python) and electronics engineer, I recently started using KiCad for my new device and I must admit that am very pleased with it!
Being a lazy person with some RSI issues I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts; I also tend to automate them with a custom “macropad” keyboard.
When doing schematics per say in EEschema it is very convenient to use keyboard, however when it takes to assign component properties via Tools -> Edit Symbol Fields there is no easy way to reach this menu via a shortcut.
Could anyone suggest how hard would it be to add the mentioned one and possibly more shortcuts to KiCAD? Is this piece of GUI code to be added in Python or in C++?
May be there is an easier approach to do so via some API calls (similar to OBS Studio)?
Please let me know what can be done here, I am even ready to roll up my sleeves and implement it; possibly that would be useful not only for me alone.
In that case the first thing you should do is to use the unstable development version, 5.99, because everything except small bugfixes happen there. Tons of shortcuts have been added since 5.1, so this may be also.
Hi eelik,
Thank you very much for reply!
Is there a “nightly builds” to try the current version which is in development?
Is there something like “reference build environment” or every developer creates their own one according to documentation at https://dev-docs.kicad.org/en/build/?
P.S.
I managed to dig something in the source code, ee_actions.cpp has some mappings of functions displayed in menu to some shortcuts. Not sure if this is the only place to edit.
Is Eeschema.hotkeys config file generated automatically on first KiCad start?
I don’t know what you mean by that. The Windows build instructions are specific to Windows (Visual Studio) and that’s the “reference” nowadays. For Linux I have written a bit easier instructions.