Ive just upgraded from Kicad 4 to Kicad 5 to start a new project.
Whenever I create a subsheet it displays in the left side toolbar along with the main sheet for the schematic.
This differs from the behaviour in version 4, and clutters up the toolbar somewhat. I prefer the V4 behaviour.
Is this behaviour change intended or is it a bug?
Ive found that I can return to the V4 behaviour by editing the sch file with a text editor to set the first number in the Sheet line of the sch file in the sch file to be 2 rather than 1.
Subsheets created by V4 seem to have this value set to ‘2’, but in those created by V5 it is set to ‘1’.
Other than manually editing as I have done, I have been unable to find anything in preferences to change this. Is there another way of doing this, and what do the values in the sheet line actually do? They are not explained in the file format document.
Details of the installed version etc follow:
Application: kicad
Version: 5.1.2-f72e74a~84~ubuntu18.04.1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.58.0 OpenSSL/1.1.0g zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.4 libpsl/0.19.1 (+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.30.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.15.0-48-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.22
Boost: 1.65.1
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.58.0
Compiler: GCC 7.3.0 with C++ ABI 1011
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON
What do you mean with sheets are shown in the left toolbar. I do not see anything change on the left side of eeschema if i add one. Could you make a screenshot of what you see?
I’ve got V5.1.0 and the hierarchical icons are only on the top toolbar. Is this some new function in V5.1.2 ?
I’ve heared rumors that configurable toolbars are on the roadmap, maybe already for V6…
Edit: Oopsie daisy, no new feature, but what does it look like then?
5.1.2 is not allowed to change anything compared to 5.1.0 regarding the graphical interface. This is to avoid needing to update the docu for bugfix releases. (I think there is an exception in place for fixing or adding translations.) It can only contain bugfixes. (KiCad release policy.)
Place a hierarchical sheet and save and close the schematic.
With version 5 the hierarchical sheet shows up in the left pane of the
project window as in the screenshot below. This differs from the
behaviour in version 4, which did not display hierarchical sub-sheets in
the left pane.
This appears to be because in V5 EEscehma creates the hierarchical
sheet with the first value on the ‘Sheet’ line set to 1. In V4 it is set
to 2. I can restore the V4 behaviour by editing the hierarchical sheet
file in a text editor to set this value to 2.
I think the V4 behaviour is preferable.
So my question was is the behaviour change from V4 intentional, or is it
a bug? and:
is there any option to restore the V4 behaviour other than editing the
schematic file to change the value in the ‘Sheet’ line ?
Thank you. This is indeed correct, when I place some content in the hierarchical sheet and save it, it does disappear from the left pane. I agree this is actually a handy feature.
However, the first time I tried this I tried to add content to the hierarchical sheet by copying and pasting from a hierarchical sheet in another project. In this case the hierarchical sheet icon disappeared from the left pane, but an additional project file for the hierarchical sheet appeared in its place (screenshot attached). So it appears there is some anomalous behaviour if you populate the hierarchical sheet by pasting content from another project.
I have also deleted the items I placed on the hierarchical sheet and successfully cut and pasted the content from another project into it without any side effects, so the work around is to make sure you take the following steps if you intend to populate a new hierarchical sub-sheet by cutting and pasting:
place at least one component on the sub-sheet manually.
Save the sheet.
reopen the sheet, delete the component and paste the desired content.
