Hello,
a bit of a beginner question…
I used to mark a track, hit E and move it throug layers or change it as needed…
Suddenly, when I tried placing a via the E button does not show anything. I wanted to place several vias and be sure they are all connected to right netclass.
Even left click context menu to preferences does not do anything.
So I clicked a standard track and E on some the menu appears on some not.
Are you seeing this a possible bug, or are you questioning what the e shortcut key does?
e is a general key for editing the properties of “something”. Wen there is no selection, it acts on the item under the cursor, and when a selection is active it (tries to) act on that selection. If only tracks are selected, then you can change the properties of those tracks. (Such as widht or layer).
If a Footprint is selected, you can edit the properties of that footprint.
if a single pad of a footprint is selected, you can edit the properties of only that pad.
However if different sorts of items are in the selection, KiCad can’t decide which dialog it should pop up and therefore does nothing.
If you want to edit properties of Tracks & Via’s, then make sure that only tracs & Via’s are selected. One way to do so is to hover over a track or via (or select it first) and then use the u and i shortcut keys that select more connected copper to your selection.
I just placed two via’s on a PCB, then selected them both and pressed e to edit their properties. It just works for me. Maybe you have some older version of KiCad. All kinds of bugs get fixed all the time. The current version is V5.1.9. If you have an older version, then I advise to update.
There usually is not much use for placing via’s and then start drawing tracks to or from them. While drawing tracks you can press v to connect a via to the cursor, and when you place it, the track continues on the other side of the PCB.
I also recommend to set up your desing rules / net classes in advance, so you get the right track widths and via sizes the first time and don’t have to edit them later.
I have the 5.1.9-0-10_14 release build on MacOS.
It has been an awkward ride- Just installing it did not work because read write access violation. I happilly found a thread about that in this forum- the issues seems to be known for quite some time. Maybe I just found the next issue?