Oh, now I could read the whole thread. The original question has nothing to do with the last messages including mine. Sorry for hijacking the conversation.
The “save as” is the way you can do this as you already know. However Kicad requires the PCB file (.kicad_pcb) having the same name as the project (.pro). Why? Because it stores extra information required for the layout in this file too.
I think you have 2 options here:
Since the new .pro file is re-created by default when you open the new layout, you can copy and name your main schematic page to have the same name to the layout too. This way both (schematics and layout) will be still related. You could also symlink it to the original schematic, so you could have 2 different versions of the board for the same schematics - which is awesome - by the way.
What I used to do in the past was to save these temporary layouts inside the project, and when I wanted to compare them visually I would duplicate the whol project folder and then in the copy, I removed the original.kicad_pcb and also rename the original_v01.kicad_pcb back to original.kicad_pcb. And you can also delete any possible original_v01.pro existent.
These things are pretty simple to understand and do. But if you use git, you will have better tools to manage versions/control/observe different versions of the project.
To conclude, Kicad does not have this functionality where you can have 2 or more board versions of the same schematic easily. This might be due to the fact that footprint information is kept inside the schematics files, and most of the time, when you want a second version of the board, you would probabbly change footprints too (and also the schematics to be honest).
I personally use version control to save intermediate steps, but wanted to mention that in the nightly build (and upcoming 6.0) there is an automatic backup function:
You can adjust these settings to determine how often backups will occur, and how many old backups are kept. The backups are put in a zip archive and named according to the date+time.
This is NOT a substitute for a proper disaster recovery backup setup (for example if your computer dies, or is attacked by a virus, etc). But, it can be a convenient way of having access to some previous states of your design.
@craftyjon
Looks good to me. One question: Can I trigger a backup manually in 6.0, instead of clocked triggers? I’d like to decide when to trigger a backup, e.g. before a bigger change or after a subsection is finished.
This opens a file browser window and lets you choose a filename and location.
It also does not blindly backup everything. For example it does archive the backup directory in the project.
I’ve always been a bit wary of this fuction. I regularly add some extra files with nodes, maybe even a directory with some datasheets or documentation to a KiCad project, and I never can remember what this archive function does, or does not archive.
It’s best to use an external tool if you want to backup all kinds of files or a directory structure in addition to your KiCad project files. The archive tool (and the automatic backup tool) will backup some, but not all non-KiCad file types.
