Hi,
I just upgraded from my old Version 5.xx to the latest Version 6. My first impression is that the user interface is very clean and tidy, with my only immediate criticism that the save button is always greyed out regardless of whether you have saved and there are no changes (I would strongly suggest this revert to the older method whereby you know your work is saved when it’s greyed out, otherwise it is colourized).
That aside, my key question here is how are you meant to efficiently draw Silkscreen lines when designing a footprint? In the older Kicad version, I could use keys like CTRL and ALT to force a horizontal or vertically drawn line, whereas now there is no orthogonal control at all using these buttons. IE when I place the first endpoint of my line down, the second one being dragged by the mouse appears to be unable to be forced horizontal or vertical (CTRL key in Version 5.xx). Likewise I often used the ALT key that snaps the line end to the nearest snap point. None of this works anymore, and I have looked up the hotkeys in help, but it’s not listed there, and I have trawled through much of the documentation on Version 6 too.
ah thanks, I see that (in terms of the Shift + Space). Not sure how you invoke the context menu. What about the ALT snap that used to work. Although I see I can have a snap point (such as the end of another line) pop up, it’s not really snapping to this. IE the line I’m drawing continues to be freely drawn.
Is there a document and/or a video that covers these and other drawing tools? I suspect there are other shortcuts or tools that I may not be aware of.
Just laying out another footprint too, and I see the Move command seems to have disappeared too. By Move I don’t mean the ability to freely pick an object up and move it, but rather where I could type in "X = 50mm) to move something to the right by 50mm.
Ah not to worry, I just found the Move command. It’s listed under “Special Tools” (along with the other very useful command, Move with Reference). Found when I right click on the part to be moved.
I think this is the most disappointing change between v5.1 and v6.0. You can hide the grid and then it should snap, but the distance when it snaps is very small, so you have to be careful. In 5.1 it was enough to press a modifier key and go sloppily in the right direction and it snapped.
What about the ALT snap that used to work. Although I see I can have a snap point (such as the end of another line) pop up, it’s not really snapping to this. IE the line I’m drawing continues to be freely drawn
I started using kicad directly with v6 so no comparison with v5. To avoid that the line “draws freely and doesn’t snap” despite there is snapping-circle shown I switch the grid with ALT+2 to a coarse grid. The coarse grid greatly enhances the “snapping experience”.