How to add plugin in windows 10

Software
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how to add plugin for my kicad windows?

what is the purpose of plugin?

how to generate .brd file in kicad

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how to add plugin for my kicad windows?
c:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\kicad\scripting

what is the purpose of plugin?
To extend and enhance the capability of the suite

how to generate .brd file in kicad
Using PCBnew either via eeschema to design the circuit and push the netlist or directly

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KiCad doesn’t use .brd files, it uses .kicad_pcb files.

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How to download the script for Windows

If we download the script, that we have to past the file which we downloaded

Please help me with step by step instructions this will be helpful for many users

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Is there any way to convert the .kicad_pcb file to .brd file

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What .brd file, for what purpose?

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There is a viewer for .brd files but there is no viewer for .kicad_pcb file. The purpose is for check the placements and routing without kicad application

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The extension .brd is used by different ECAD programs. Even kicad layout files had this extension before 2014.
Anyway the short anser is “no”, at least from KiCad.

You can ask in a forum of the other program if they have a kicad_pcb importer.

1 Like
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A baby steps tutorial would be nice. If someone knows how to download a plugin, install it, and execute it, that would be super helpful if they could describe the process.

There is this topic: https://docs.kicad.org/5.1/en/plugins/plugins.html
but I am only on a handshake relationship with Python and C. Well, it’s more than that but we are not dating.
A ‘how to’ for the preinstalled plugins would be nice. I see plugins in the plugins folder but I do now know how to work them. There may be a topic that is relevant but I have not yet found it. Thanks in advance.

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The link you posted is for internal plugin system that nobody uses as far as I know. I’m not even sure it’s still maintained, certainly no 3rd party plugins using that system have been published widely.

Plugins that come with kicad preinstalled are footprint generators (wizards). The stuff you get when you do File -> Create footprint... in the fp editor
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They are useful and there are some available on the interwebz.

But most often what is referred to as plugin are pcbnew action plugins. Kicad doesn’t package any but there are plenty available from various contributors.
You can find fairly detailed instructions of how to install plugins on my plugin’s wiki page. Those instructions are applicable to most plugins, unless author provides alternative instructions which you should follow.

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Thank you! Here are some notes about the install. I have not tried to create symlinks to the repository folders.

  1. The new folder, ‘C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\kicad\scripting\plugins’ has to be created. It does not install with KiCad. The KiCad folder ‘C:\Program Files\KiCad\share\kicad\scripting\plugins’ is not a good place because the folder may be overwritten by a KiCad update (this is in the instructions).
  2. The folder depth can only be one deep. Adding the folder “Kicad_action_plugins” with the subdirectories in place to the new plugins folder does not work.
  3. In Windows, you will be asked for permission to copy files to the new folder in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\kicad\scripting\plugins Does this mean that the folder is still writable by KiCad and is there a way to test this? Everything seems to work!
  4. New menu items appear in the Pcbnew menu Tools > External Plugins.
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Windows shouldn’t ask you for permissions if you are copying files into your user’s folder (i.e. user are logged in is the same as username in the path).
To test you can try my plugin, if you can save config and it persists between plugin launches than the directory is writable for kicad.

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