First off - WOW 9.0 is an absolute MONSTER release! I am so excited! I am especially excited for the jobsets feature, since I am terribly forgetful and inconsistent in this area currently.
I was wondering if there are plans to bring text variables to the jobset, or if I should rethink my workflow to fit!
I usually like to have my board part number in my fabrication package name, so for example:
If the project is “PCB0001” I create a zip file called “PCB0001_FabPkg”.
I would think that this would still allow portability of the jobset file between projects, since the text variables are pretty consistent?
In short - quick access to a few project level variables like the project name would be handy as heck, in my humble opinion!
Very excited to see how others approach releasing designs with this fantastic new feature!!
Disclaimer - I am learning this myself, so there may be some emphasis on the “dumbed” part…
The end result is no different than doing things manually - but it is automated and repeatable. Instead of a manual process of clicking through the menus, exporting things, naming them, and then zipping them up into a nice file to send to a supplier, you tell KiCad how you want that all to happen and then hit a button to do it that way again and again (and in my case again and again and again!)
This helps me in two major ways:
Saves me time, since currently every time I make a change to the board, I need to manually re-export everything, rename things, and package them up in various ways for various people.
Avoids mistakes in export settings. If I want to export a PDF, I might want to use different export settings than if I was exporting my gerbers. Currently, this means I would need to set all my checkboxes for my PDF export (Which origin, what layers, etc.), hit export, change them again to the gerber settings (different origin, maybe specific layers). If I do this more than 2 or 3 times for a board, I am sure to miss some setting somewhere.
Imagine exporting your board, all ready for design, and right before you send it off to the supplier, you notice you misspelled a word on the silk screen and forgot to put your logo on it. This feature lets you make that change, then hit as little as ONE button to be right back where you were.
