Hello everyone, I locked my PCB by mistake, my wireless keyboard fell and since then, I do not know what combination of keys, my PCB is locked!
I tried the following manipulation: Ctrl + A then right click:
Fortunately with V6 of Kicad there are backups of your work, so I was able to recover a PCB before the problem. But I would like to have an answer anyway on the fact that we can lock a PCB … Thank you.
If your issue was related to selecting things, maybe you have disabled “Selection filter” items by mistake? Look at the bottom of right panel.
The locking/unlocking mechanism presently is quite frustrating.
Luckily there is a really simple option to unlock all and that is possible due to the open fileformat.
if you were to open the PCB file in any text editor (notepad, vim,…) and do a global find/replace for locked it will remove the locking.
NOTE: if you have named something (layer, trace…) as locked it could cause issues, in that case the wider
locked (layer replaced with (layer should work.
Always keep a backup
Euhm, are you aware that the locking is a per item base?
You first have to make a selection, and then the (un-) locking feature works on the selection.
me or the OP?
The issue I always run into is I lock via’s, especially around BGA’s and critical components. A simple rectangle selection just isn’t good enough. Now v5.99/v6 does has the filter option on locking making this less frustrating
I do not use the locking function much myself. I do find it a bit annoying that it could only be toggled in V5, but in V5.99 it has been improved and it can actually be turned on or off for a selection.
For most things I prefer the ineractive router to shove things around to make room for the more important stuff I’m working on at that moment. (Long ago I had some troubles with mentally adjusting to how the Interactive Router works, but I embraced it after my adjustment period and am now quite happy with it)
A thing still missing though is visual feedback for items that are locked.
About the filter…
When locked items are excluded from the filter you can drag a box around the whole PCB, and locked items do not get selected, which gives visual feedback.
However, when I press [Ctrl + a] ( In V5.99) then everything gets selected, even the locked items and even if those are turned off in the filter. Is this a bug or a feature?
I would say it’s a feature because all means all.
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