I have the following problem (and not very proud of it). I was among those who complained that the interface is not standard, that copy should be ctrl-C, paste should be ctrl-V as in any program with a graphical interface. But over the months, I got used to the C key to copy one item in schematic. I have tried to reassign copy to C and not ctrl-C, and it works, but it doesn’t paste directly as the C command used to do. Is there a way to assign C to copy+paste, or more generally is there a way to associate multiple actions to a single key?
NB: Ideally I would appreciate a S key that does the whole schematic for me, but we are maybe too early in Kicad roadmap.
Is this in V5.1.x or in V5.99?
Eeschema, Pcbnew or one of the other programs?
For Eeschema V5.1.9 the c key is by default assigned to: "Duplicate Symbol or Label"
There are also common Copy & Paste keys, which are by default assigned to [Ctrl +C] and [Ctrl + V]. If you assign the c key to one of those, you have a different function.
In V5.99 the c key is by default assigned to some kind of bus related funcion. I had been experimenting a bit with getting the single key duplicate back, but could not get it to work. I also did not search long because I thought this was reported as a bug.
After I noticed the “Duplicate Symbol or Label” in V5.1.9 however, I looked a bit closer at the hotkeys in V5.99, and it also has a duplicate function in the Common section. By default it is assigned to [Ctrl + D]. I just tried it and it works both in Eeschema and in Pcbnew.
Thanks for your reply.
Of course! I should have tried D = Duplicate.
Now I will set copy back to ctrl-C, and I would like to use D for duplicate (without control).
The problem is that D is already set to show datasheet. As a typical engineer, I never read datasheets and usually work in “act first, think next” mode (Usually I consider that if there is no smoke, I did my job). No, seriously, I mostly read documentation before I choose the component.
So I would like to first unassign D before assigning it to duplicate. How do I unassign a shortcut?
In the meantime, I have reassigned it to alt-D.
Assuming 5.99, you can go to Preferences Menu-> Preferences -> Hotkeys, then right click Datasheet -> Clear Hotkey. You’ll have to do this in eeschema for the datasheet shortcut to show up.
However, you can also just assign the hotkey to the action you want, and kicad will ask if you want to use the hotkey for the new action instead of the old.
The problem is that Kicad doesn’t ask. As I thought it would, I tried, and then D was assigned both to duplicate and datasheet. I could reproduce the bug:
If you try to change one schematic shortcut for one that already exists in common, then there is a confirmation dialog
If you try to change one common shortcut for one that already exists in schematic, then there is no confirmation dialog and the same shortcut exists for both actions.
By the way, when I wanted to check the above to be sure all the shortcuts had disappeared. But closing and reopening the dialog fixed the problem.
