Hi, I’m creating footprints in 7.0.
My footprints are, or seem, to have rectangles which are made from lines.
So I have assembly drawing and courtyards as a rectangle. Each corner point is matched to
the vertical and horizontal line.
How can I stretch the rectangle, while keeping the corners connected to horizontal and vertical lines?
Now they disconnect And a must reconnect each corner again…
I think I mis a smart key feature 
Not clear for me. You deleted lines and replaced them with rectangles?
I don’t know how rectangles behave as all my footprints use only lines (I have done them with previous KiCad version when rectangles in footprints were not allowed).
Use the rectangle tool to create rectangles in the first place so that they can be resized.
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The rectangle is only a resulting shape from 4x line which connect at the corners.
So no direct rectangle shape from the drawing menu.
So I understand that Kicad does not think that fully connected lines can form a rectangle.
And can size this shap as if it is a rectangle…
seems to me a rather simple routine.
Just like a board outline. Which must also be a conected shape before kicad will handle it as a
closed shape for the board outline…
If you draw lines, you have lines, and can edit the lines
If you draw a rectangle you have a rectangle and can manipulate a rectangle.
It’s simple and straightforward, just the way I like it.
It may be nice to have a tool to create a polyline or a rectangle from lines (and the other way around). Maybe something like that will be implemented some day, but mechanical CAD capabilities are not a high priority in KiCad.
Edit: Oops, forgot about the Create from Selection.
It’s possible to convert between lines and polyline, but not either one to a rectangle (it would require checking the number of the corner points and angles). RMB menu → Create from Selection.
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BTW, most of the footprints in the official libraries use lines for rectangles. That makes it difficult to use one recommended workflow, namely copying from those libraries and editing the personal copies.
THX for your help. I will use the tips…
In previous versions there was no rectangle tool and the only way was to draw lines. Those could not be resized either. Although a check was made if was meant to be an outline that it is a closed shape. Now rectangle has a tool and is a primitive. So it should be used for your purposes.
Unfortunately as eelik pointed out, old footprints contain lines, not rectangles. I wonder if they will be converted at some future date, but that would break compatibility with older KiCad versions. I also wonder if the footprint wizard generates rectangles now; I should check.
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