Hi all,
I’ve been using KiCad for at least three years for my hobby projects and I think it’s getting better with each new version. But I’ve noticed even one thing which makes me a bit frustrated in the last couple of versions. Couple of version ago, I noticed that when I select part in eeschema it highlights in pcbnew and vice versa. It’s a great helper I think, especially if you have two screens (or one huge one 
) and you can see simultaneously in eeschema what part you are moving in pcbnew. In the past this feature worked great for me but I started having troubles couple of months ago. I can’t say which version was the first where the issue has started for me, because I don’t have much time to develop electronics during the summer… Whats been happening: Today when I run eeschema and pcbnew simultaneously, every time I select part in eeschema the pcbnew window gets focused and raised. It’s annoying if you have only one screen. One solution is to have only one KiCad window open according what I need to do (eeschema or pcbnew). When I use two monitors (eeschema and pcbnew on their own screens) the situation is a slight better. “Stealing” the focus is still here, but it’s enough to slightly move the mouse pointer to get focus back (I use Linux with Plasma desktop and the window behavior is “Focus follows the mouse”). Today I tested what happens if I change this windows behavior (somewhere I’ve read that could be a solution) and discovered that it doesn’t matter what behavior of my window manager I set. I found that the eeschema and pcbnew windows behave normal in relation with other application windows (text editor, web browser etc.) but differently between themselves. I found that when the mouse pointer touches the work area the whole respective window (eeschema or pcbnew) gets immediately focus and raises above the another KiCad window. Highlighting of the part in the work area is probably the same event as a mouse pointer touch in my opinion. Consequence is that if I want to see circuit schematics and PCB at one time, I have to have the two windows placed side by side or on different screens. And I have to keep this odd behavior in my mind and each select of any part must be followed by the little mouse movement to get the focus back. When I turn on 3D viewer in pcbnew I can’t navigate to it with mouse because during the movement of my mouse pointer to the viewer window the pointer always hits the work area which means pcbnew raises over the viewer. I have to use CTRL-TAB switching to the viewer… I’d like to know if someone has similar troubles and if so whether he has solved them or not. Only one similar thread I have found here on the forum - the guy described very similar symptoms but on Windows 10. He installed some utility to make him available to set up “Focus follows the mouse” behavior even in Windows but the result was very similar to situation described above.
So, please, any ideas how to solve it? I know it is not a critical issue but it’s a bit annoying.
Thanks in advance for your tips…
Petr