Yes, although we do not provide binary builds for the public.
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Whatās wrong with an evolving file format? Kicad is always backwards compatible. Iāve used Kicad since v4 (2008) and Iāve never felt the need to go back to a prior version. In the few cases that Iāve found a newly introduced bug thatās hard to live with, that bug has been fixed within 1-2 days of reporting. I honestly donāt understand why so many people complain that the file format is evolving hand that old versions of Kicad cannot open files created by a much newer version.
As explained above . . . Plugins have to be modified to work with a new version file format, if you rely on a particular plugin and itās not been modified you canāt upgrade.
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Thats due to changes in the python bindings, not due to changes in the file format. Python plugins shouldnāt work directly with the Kicad files. Iām not aware of any plugins that does that, but maybe there is. Anyhow, creating a stable api has been a wishlist item for a very long time, and there is progress towards this as craftyjon said.
Iām all for a stable and well thought out api, but i donāt understand why people complain about file format changes. Do people really write scripts that manipulate files directly?
Well, hereās an example for you. I created a board in version 6, convert it to version 7 and? and you expect it to open without errors and changes right? in practice, a lot of errors and new connections appear that either need to be corrected by hand or remain at 6 ā¦ now imagine that your project is not a flasher for a Christmas tree, but letās say 6 layers and + 300-500 components ā¦ with libraries, too, the miracle does not happen enough just press the convert button, you need to edit all the components;
What kind of errors? Iāve opened lots of projects in v7 that was created in v5 or v6. Since the DRC is evolving, itās expected to get some new DRC errors, those are usually easy to fix. I also turn off a few DRC checks that I donāt care about, usually stuff concerning the silk screen.
My projects usually have about 300-800 components.
Iām not sure what you mean with ānew connectionsā, thatās not something Iāve experienced. Can you point at a bug report? Does this really have to do with file format changes?
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testing on users is probably a good idea but in test builds and not in a stable releaseā¦ all these mistakes have been known for a long time and are in the last places in priorities ā¦ although they are not considered mistakes ā¦ itās kind of the norm ā¦ well, silk-screen printing has increased with you, so what?)) I will repeat to you once again when updating from one stable release to another, the user expects not the breakdown of old boards and circuits, but the correction of bugs and new functions ā¦
I agree! Developers have better things to spend time on.
But how do you decide when to tag a release as stable? As long as we users are the testers, and as long as thereās to few people testing the test builds and nightly builds, itās hard to know when a test build is stable.
Stable releases are often postponed due to users finding bugs in testing builds or release candidates. If more people helped out to find the bugs, the stable releases would indeed be even more stable.
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Of course! And since itās up to us users to do the testing, weāre the only ones that can make this happen.
But I still donāt understand what this has to do with evolving file formatsā¦
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In this case, āpluginsā is being used to refer to any third-party tool made to operate on KiCad projects. There are many that directly operate on schematic and library files because there is not and has never been a KiCad API that operates on anything other than PCB files. And these tools break if the file formats change enough.
Thanks for the clarification! Thatās a valid point that I can understand. There are severeal subjects being mentioned simultaneously in this thread and itās getting confusing.
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in this case, the conversion is inevitable errors or at least a lot of manual labor, depending on the project
And your first post back you label people who may be trying to help you as āfreaksā . . . you just donāt know when to shut up do you. What is you aim here ? to alienate anyone that might be prepared to help you solve your problems ?
Do me a favour ? do yourself a favour, donāt reply . . .
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The freaks are the ones who get offended over different way of thinking on technical stuff and silence me using the automatic flagging system.
Why should I shut up?
That behaviour is deprecable and not fair.
And yours is too.
I see no reason to keep this Post goingā¦