I see that “W” increases the track width but that only seems to work in the process of creating the track. I’m wondering if there’s a quick way to select an existing track (I use “u” to select all connected track segments) and then hit another key to increase or decrease the track width. I don’t think there is but thought I’d ask. Thanks!
… assume that you know that after you select track you can hit E to edit track and select track width in the drop-down menu?
Sorry. Yes I do. Wanted to save some clicks and just cycle up or down with a hotkey if possible.
Yes, there is a method to do this.
Before it works however you do have to setup pre defined trackwidths in:
Pcbnew / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / Tracks & Via’s
I think that after that W and [Shift + W] should work with the widths defined in that list. I have no experience with this feature myself, so experiment and/or read the manual.
Thanks. I already have that set up and the “W” key does work but it only works when laying down the tracks. I’m talking about modifying a track that’s already laid down.
If you’ve made a selection (with i or u for example) you can press e for Edit, which pops up the Track & Via Properties window:
In there you can set your selection to the pre defined widhts or type in some random number, etc.
In: Pcbnew / Edit / Edit Track & Via Properties you can also set widths for whole nets or layers:
There may be other methods too, but reading the manual would be more effective than trying to have someone else do that for you.
That post was a lot of effort. Thank you. You may have noticed from my earlier post in this thread that I know how to edit a track using the “e” key and go through the menus as you show.
What you may not have noticed was my question was how to do it using a hotkey like “w” where you don’t see any menus but the selected tracks cycle through the predefined widths. It would be awesome if there was a thicken or thin hotkey where no menus were shown.
Also, I did read the manual which is how I found out about the “w” key in the first place but that didn’t provide any solutions. Nor did you or your snarky end sentence.
I’m sorry for that last sentence. Sometimes it’s hard for me to interpret the knowledge or effort others have put into it from reading some text on a forum.
I was also slightly annoyed / surprised that w and **[Shift + w] did not work on a selection. It would have been intuitive and logical if you have made some selecton of a net and press w, that then each segment would go to the next wider from the pre-selected list.
This seems such a logical function to me that it may already be implemented in the nightlies, or if you make an item for it on gitlab I’ll give it an upvote as a new feature.
No problem. You still provided assistance which is appreciated. Agree on the intuitiveness comment. In fact, it took me awhile to realize that “w” was for creation only. I thought my version was broken at first until I realized it might work during creation and sure enough it did.
I really don’t bother changing track widths until after the overall layout is done and then I see how wide I can make the tracks and still be comfortable. Just dragging and thickening is a big part of it and not having a fast thickening key is a bummer.
I’ll go file on gitlab.
I’m also looking through gitlab’s UI to check if something similar has already been posted on:
I still have to get used to gitlab. bug reports and wish lists used to be on launchpad, and source code on github…
Oops, always software… the + in the link gets tanslated to %2B somewhere, which makes gitlab choke.
So I’ve been looking through the issues on github for the better part of 20minutes and could not find this same issue, so it could make a nice feature request or wishlist item.
In the mean time. Why this workflow?
It seems unproductive.
Width of clearance of tracks influences how many tracks fit in a certain area.
I once had to make a lot of tracks thicker, which means adjusting routing etch which was quite a nuisance.
Overall it is much better to first set up your net classes properly before routing a board.
After setting up the Track Widths, the only thing I do to change any Track is:
• Select desired Width from pull-down
• Double-Click the track to change - Bingo, it changes without doing anything else…
This does not work for me with default hotkey settings in KiCad 5.1.5-52549c5~86~ubuntu18.04.1.
With me, double clicking just brings up the Track and Via Properties for the selected segment.
@BlackCoffee What’s your KiCad version and did you change hotkeys for this?
I don’t remember changing any Hot-Keys. Hot-Key list… attached (pcbnew.txt).
(Using Mac OSX 10.12.6)
pcbnew.txt (6.4 KB)
Neat trick! But, same as Paul, it doesn’t seem to work for me. Would prefer cycling through the predefined widths anyhow.
Regarding workflow, it’s just a mindset of “Well, 20mill is fine for this particular trace but since I have plenty of room here, why not 40?” I don’t see any reason to give up copper if I don’t need to I guess.
Thanks! That certainly did it. Trouble is only the track you double-clicked on gets changed - any others that you also had selected (usually via the “u” key) don’t get changed.
Select all the tracks you want to change to a Particular value, Then: Menubar> Edit> Edit Track And Via Properties
In the panel, select the desired width and OK