It is best to restart kicad after deleting the tables but before opening the library editors. (They might be cached at some point)
(Note: I’m re-reading this thread in case I find something important to remember…)
This “update” doesn’t work for updating from library v4 to v5. What it does it just reloads the footprint(s) from the library, using the given Library:Footprint name. It’s useful if you edit your own footprint and want to update it to a board. What probably happened to you was that you still had the old libraries from github and the old fp-lib-table, and the footprints were updated but nothing happened because all footprints were identical (although it should restore some state of the footprint, like text sizes etc.)
Right. Yeah, my wording was exceptionally awkward:
I should have really re-written that sentence. My apologies.
Only if the footprint in the library is different to the footprint in the pcb. Otherwise no changes are made.
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OK, found it. Thanks for your patience. Didn’t notice that the path via the User___\AppData\ …
Now, I went and looked at the fp-lib-table and discovered that the latest modification to the Table was 10 days ago. That’s about a week before I uninstalled v4 and installed v5, but long after I downloaded and first started to run v4.0.7…
I just went through the same thing and the problem turned out to be that I had not purged the KiCad files in my AppData\Roaming directory. After deleting all of my v4 stuff and reinstalling v5, models have wrl and step files, and 3D Viewer and 3D export both work. See What am I doing wrong - 3D
With regard to the original topic, in v4 I only ever used the default canvas because I just couldn’t stand the look and feel of the OpenGL one. Never felt I was missing out on any features. Now that I’ve switched to v5 I have no complaints; it’s vastly improved in many ways and I’m not looking back.
Your Post comes at a good time:
I just renamed the fp-lib-table in my AppData\Roaming…directory and, after shutting down my computer and restarting and getting KiCad up and running, it flagged an message indicating that the Library Table was missing and that it had either installed the default one or…[something else].
I then went to the Footprint Editor, and Voila…despite the *.wrl associated with the particular, random capacitor footprint I opened, the system displayed the capacitor’s 3d model perfectly.
Are you suggesting that I should delete, or at least rename, ALL the files in that directory and let KiCad automatically install default ones?
It may have needed only the fp_libtable fix, I don’t know. I had no time for investigative work and just wanted to get on with v5 so I moved all the old stuff into a backup location and started clean.
In that thread I predicted that others would run into the same issue, and here you are.
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Your prediction was correct. Hopefully, this problem will either be corrected in changes to the Uninstall routine, or (at the very least) someone will write a cheat-sheet for the uninstall of V4 and the install of V5.
I think is is very bad idea that unistalling KiCad 4.0.7 will delete not only KiCad files but also all what I have done in AppData\Roaming\kicad. My fp-lib-table contains a list of only created by me libraries.
Why uninstalling should delete my configuration?
That is exactly the problem faced by the devs.
I think it is generally a bad idea that there is exactly one fp-lib-table.
A approach with multiple tables might really be the best idea. (But that will need to wait for v6)
What I have done as a first step in looking around in KiCad was look around in libraries (symbol and footprints) and decide which are potentially interested. Then I copied only them to my folder and make list containing only them.
Then defined my libraries (all planed, each with one dummy element). Then if interested elements I’ve got form some KiCad library I deleted it from my list - the end would be list with only my libs, but not get to that state yet.
I think, that if KiCad after installtion would have emply library lists and user first task would be to add to list that libraries he is interested in. Than he will have filling that all libraries in the list are added there by him (it is omportant point here).
Then if uninstallation of software would not uninstall KiCad libs (libs are not software) changing KiCad version will have no effect untill new version will know how to work with old libraries. Then if user will install new set of libraries (or with new KiCad they would be installed but in new directories not to replace old libs) then for him it would be obvious that he need to look around in them and add to his list the interested ones.
Writeing that all I forgot that really my first step was to switch to local libs.
What I have written was - how to work with one list without haveing opinion if it is better to have one or multi.
Of course it should not delete your stuff without asking, but I see nothing wrong with the v5 installer asking you if you would like to have various things updated/backed up/replaced, etc., or even just a warning that you must update fp_lib_table after installation. If not, there’s going to be an endless stream of people who install v5 and then have trouble figuring out why things don’t work.
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Yea that is exactly what i fear will happen. This is made worse by the fact that kicad 4 used the github plugin. (If it would have used local installation of the footprint libs users would get an error message that some libs are missing. But with the github plugin kicad will happily download the old libs.)
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The best in my opinion would be if things (after replacing V4 with V5) were working - none would have to figure why things don’t work.
But as library formats were changed probably it is not so easy.
I don’t believe that if installer asked me that various things you propose I will understand what I should unswer for each of them.
I think I will install V5 on empty PC then look around, do some libs, and one test PCB and then I will think of moving from 4.0.7 to V5. I hope that copied libs from 4.0.7 to V5 when I will try to open them will be in someway converted.
A week ago I decided to move to V5 not waiting for stable release, but as have no time and sow info that it will be 30.06 so probably V5 will be faster than me.
You can use 4.0.x libs in kicad 5.
You can not easily use kicad 5 libs in kicad 4.0.x
The official libs got a major reorganization which will create problems for people moving from version 4 to version 5. (But we think the better library quality is worth the downsides.)
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I keep all my custom parts on a separate networked folder from the PC that runs KiCad, so I wasn’t very worried about trashing all the v4 libs and my AppData folder. Now v5 works great, I can open my old v4 designs and the component remapping seems to work perfectly so far (not 100% tested). Of course I will have to add the step models to my custom parts. Really liking v5.
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I hope V5 version after installation will open readme file with step-by-step tutorial how to move from V4 to V5.
It should tell what to do with AppData\Roaming\kicad directory as it is not used during installation but during first run.
If something went wrong you always can start once more provided you have backup of that directory.
I found that directory when were my first tries with 4.0.7 probably because I have read all documentation before even installig KiCad (for example about fp-lib-table you read in pcbnew.pdf (page 5)).
But as I see people even don’t know that directory exists so such readme should be usefull (provided they read it). May be it should be named better_read_me.txt or if_you_like_trobles_dont_read_me.txt
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Mine not directly - at least I have first to replace all occurences of / in my symbol names with something else.
Agree.