On my investigation of Pcbnew behaviour
I notice magnetic behaviour when routing tracks but not noticed in other situations even I have selected Always.
I have tried to add graphic lines at Dwgs.User or Eco1.User and don’t see magnetic pads.
Ok. there is no big idea with graphic to be attracted to pads but measuring distance. So I have tried “Add dimension” and still nothing.
In what Magnetic Pads “Always” is more then “When creating pads”?
I forgot the important info - KiCad 5.0.
Probably this setting is ignored in the “Modern toolset” (OpenGL GAL). After switching to Legacy canvas, works as expected. At least in 4.0.7
It might be that magnetic pads only works while in the trace tool not while in the normal drawing tools.
Snapping of graphic items was implemented only a week or so ago. Use the current nightly if you want to try out that feature.
Yeah, it’s a misnomer. But it may be difficult to convey in a UI string the relevant information about how it works. “Almost always”? “More often than just creating tracks but not always”? “When creating tracks, using the measure tool etc.”? “Whenever it feels relevant for the developers”?
In 5.0 it attracts the Measure distance tool. Along with the new snapping paradigm to which pointhi pointed it has been changed so that the center of the pad is another extra snapping point but doesn’t attract snapping away from nearby grid points when using the Measure distance tool. I was used to the 5.0 style, let’s see if I get used to the new one.
(Emphasis added.)
Somewhat off-topic . . . . Why is this behavior called “Magnetic pads”? Every application I can think of calls it “Snapping” or “Snap to pad”. Is “Magnetic” the customary term in languages other than English?
Dale
I don’t think it’s used in other languages any more than in English, it’s probably just a UI metaphor invented by the developers. I agree that “snap to pads” would be better.
Probably should be requested as a UI cleanup. Wording is also a part of UI and should be standarized across the whole app.
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