I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.
This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.
I am making a footprint with a metric grid (2.5mm). When I place the first pad, it is off grid.
How can I move a pad on grid? (i.e. to the nearest grid point). Why is there no (AFAIK) menu entry to move a pad on grid? Why do I have to fiddle with snapping?
Same for moving a component on grid (when designing a PCB). Why is there no menu entry for moving component(s) on grid? (i.e. move pin 1 of the component on grid, the rest may be still off grid).
Preferences–>Preferences–>common–>Editing–>warp mouse to origin of moved object.
Than try your move-commands again.
personal remark I: this is a user-forum. We can’t look into the head of the developers. So questions like “Why is xy not implemented the way I want it” normally can’t be answered - maybe the developers had not enough time, maybe it’s a different GUI-philosophie, maybe they wanted to annoy you, … - who knows?
personal remark II: Expecting an extra menu-entry for every little special task is not useful (my opinion) - this results in big, crowded and difficult to use menu/context-menus. Concentration on most used functions is better for a fluid workflow - on the expense that lesser used functions maybe need some more mouseclicks.
My counter-question to you is how you managed to get something off-grid in the first place.
The only way I am aware of placing something off-grid in KiCad is by disabling the grid. By default the grid is Always On and disabling takes some effort: Footprint Editor / Preferences / Preferences / Footprint Editor / Display Options. The Snap to Grid has three settings, Always On or Off, or When Grid is Shown.
You can also put things off-grid by holding the [Ctrl] key, the Special Tools from the popup menu, entering direct coordinates or other things that override the grid (for example drawing an array). But as long as the grid is nit disabled explicitly, all normal mouse drags end on a grid point.
Thank you for pointing this out. I did not even know there was a snap-to-grid function in pcbnew, I thought this was only an eechema tool. When do you use these three different “Snap to Grid” settings in pcbnew?
Best I know these settings are simply similar in all of KiCad’s (at least 6) sub programs, and each has it’s own selection box.
My best guess is that the developers don’t try to second guess user habits, but just gave each sub program (even the Gerber viewer and Drawing Sheet Editor the same settings for the grid. If they did otherwise, it would lead to bug fix requests sooner or later.
I’ve not had your experience. With the grid at 2.5mm I would expect the snap function to align you pad “right on”. If you don’t like to use the snap feature perhaps there is an absolute location menu on the pad. I’ve never tried this on a foot print but similar works on the PCB.