KiCad Support of Protel "rooms"

[Harjit]

To help with component placement on the PCB, one of the neat features in Protel was that you could select a set of components in the schematic and then go to the PCB, select a rectangle and the selected components would be placed within the rectangle.

I’ve looked but I haven’t found this on KiCad. How do I do this?

Thanks.

[Sprig]

KiCad does not support the concept of Protel “Rooms”.

What you can do ( in PcbNew) is to use the hotkey “t” to attach the annotated part to the board at that location.

I have not used Protel’s “Room” feature; however, even if the “room” of parts was “somewhere inside some imaginarying box”, would not the “Target” feature in KiCad be superior?

Just because KiCad is different, and free, does not mean it is inferior. In most cases KiCad quirks are done for a reason, and also most often in the best way for the majority of users.

[eelik]

If you use hierarchical sheets for schematics you can open the context menu over one selected footprint and click Select->Items in Same Hierarchical Sheet. Then you can move them together away from other items.

You can use Replicate layout: Action plugin to clone layout of a hierarchical sheet if it’s replicated in schematic, too. Similar functionality and actually implementation for “rooms” is in plans for v6, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1521062.

[eelik]

See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1831444 for group selection without hierarchical sheets or rooms.

[Harjit]

@eelik - thank you for the tips. I think the Replicate layout: Action plugin is an amazing idea.

@Sprig - thank you for the hotkey “t” functionality tip, while helpful, is still more work for the user.
I re-read my question and I don’t believe I said KiCad is inferior. I am ramping up on it and as part of learning, wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed something I had used in the past. I’m quite excited that in v6 this capability will be added.