Lock in schematics

Schematic
1

How to lock components and wires, or anything, in the schematics editor? This is useful in the PCB editor and so also in the schematics editor as when we happen to move a component, for example by accident when hitting the “m” key – which was meant to move a component in the pcb editor – the movement is done immediately in the schematics while losing its connections.

2

This feature is not available today.

You could upvote the open gitlab issue requesting such a feature: Object locking in schematic editor (lp:#1501677) (#1994) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab

Interestingly this issue gathered not much upvotes, despite it’s already open since 8 years.

maybe interesting: the current v8.99 nightly == development version introduced a selection filter for the schematic. Disabling elements on this selection filter should also protect against unwanted changes (but affects naturally the whole schematic).

1 Like
3

I have done just test with KiCad (7.0.11). Don’t know if with V8 it has changed.
In my opinion the source of problem is in the following behavior:
When having schematic and PCB widows opened:

  1. I click footprint then footprint and corresponding symbols are selected.
  2. When now I click at PCB at place with no element than footprint is unselected but symbol stays selected.
  3. Now when you move cursor at schematic and press ‘m’ hotkey that symbol is moved.

In my opinion the solution should be changing the point 2 behavior and not making user to have to lock all symbols.
I see no reason why clicking at the place with nothing coudn’t deselect any selected items at schematic and PCB.

4

Yes, Piotr, it works well if you FIRST hit the PCB editor frame/the PCB window, then the move works fine as it should in the PCB. It would be more cool, though, to not being forced to click the PCB side to make the movement over there, a much quicker workflow, I guess, to get rid of click click click. Or do anyone have a fast solution for this?…

Edit: I see now it’s not as bad as I thought, If zooming in on the component on the PCB side it seems to work as it should, my mistake I guess.

5

Hm, sounds interesting, where are the settings for that?

6

View > Show Properties Manager.
The Selection filter is now available in the bottom LH corner.
Deselecting means no longer accessible, consequently, the items are locked.

7

Thanks, ah that one, it’s good for other things I guess…

8

Yeah, maybe. Sort of has half a use as a locking feature.

9

I have now solved my little dilemma in another way.

I have always used 1 monitor (27") with a split view, with schematics on the left side and the PCB on the right side. Both have this way been a bit too small to feel really comfortable working with but I got used to it and accepted it.

New setup: I made keyboard shortcuts for “Switch to PCB Editor” (CTRL/CMD+1) and “Switch to Schematics Editor” (CTRL/CMD+2).

Workflow: Either select 1 or more components on either side (schematics or PCB side) and use either shortcut to jump over to the other side and move or do whatever.

Works like a charm!

The downlside with this setup, though, is that when running the DRC/ERC the error report window disappears behind the current working windows, the PCB or schematics, when clicking an error arrow in the editor (which is bad and has been a new “bug” since KiCad v6 where it worked well = the error report window stayed on the top. I have been mentioning this a few times before but stopped mentioning it as doesn’t seem to be a major issue for the developers.)