Minor irritants, or is it just me?

Am I missing some option settings here? I have several minor irritants that are impeding my productivity in 8.0.6. First of all, when interactive routing, the tool doesn’t always tidy out the net after the connection is completed. It almost always leaves a stub or two lying about that have to be deleted manually. Second, in the preferences for the pcb editor there are several grid overrides that can be selected. However when doing interactive routing it doesn’t respect the grid overrides, it will only use the current system grid when hand routing. Am I missing something here? Also the DRC violations highlighting doesn’t work when encountering filled zones. That appears to be a bug. Oh, and the “<” hot key doesn’t work as advertised. That’s supposed to place a via then switch to the routing layer selected in the popup that appears. The via gets placed, I select the new layer in the popup, but the routing layer never changes and the route operation stops. So then I have to select the layer from the Layers window then restart the route from the placed via. Again, am I missing something here?

I guess that can happen so that’s why there’s a Tools > Cleanup Tracks & Vias you can run after a long session.

Dunno about the ohters. Some paragraphing would help readers.

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I think the routing layer only changes after you have placed the via . . . did you click to place the via ? I did and it seemed to work for me . . .

Yes, always have to click after placing the via. This is a 10 layer board, maybe the pcb editor is confused? That’s why I asked if there’s a setting I possibly missed.

Just to be crystal clear what I tried (I’ve never used that hotkey before) I started a track on the Top layer, clicked to get an arbitrary node, then used the hotkey, I selected the Bottom layer . . . at this point I was still routing on the Top layer, I clicked again, this placed the via and was now routing on the Bottom layer.

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Thanks. Guess I’ll just have to fool around with it some more.

Do you have grid overrides actually turned on? (Grid/lock button at the top of the left toolbar)

I don’t believe collisions between zones and traces have ever been highlighted. I think that’s by design, because when you refill zones they will avoid the trace.

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This is not a bug, it’s working as intended. Filled zones automatically avoid anything on other nets when they are refilled, so they aren’t considered obstacles when routing.

The area behind the red lock symbol is blue. I can cycle it on and off with G. Hah, and now it works. Something stale must have been lying about. I have noticed that occasionally when certain things are changed in the preferences a complete restart of KiCad is necessary for things to take effect.

I maintain that this is a bug. Pours are placed and then endangered by traces cutting them up? That’s just daft. Of course pours will be redone when edits intentionally occur within their boundaries, that only makes sense. But once a pour is completed it should be treated just like any other pad or trace shape. If a trace NEEDS to encroach a bit on a pour then just delete the copper, place trace, repour. But at least I’ll have control over anything altering the shape of the pour.

I think you misunderstand how pours work in KiCad (and in fact in many EDA tools). If you want a large copper shape that prevents traces from modifying it, you can use a graphic polygon and assign it a net, but there is no way to have a copper pour “sometimes” act like a pour and sometimes act like a unchangeable polygon.

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I guess I must have had too many years on Mentor Graphics and CADSTAR, got used to the way those tools worked.