Is there any Ruler in PCBNew?
I’m using KiCAD 6.0.1 and I don’t find it.
Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, there are two options (highlighted below)
The bottom one is a temporary ruler for measuring from point A to point B.
The top one adds a dimension object to the design which is persistent. It goes on whatever layer is active. There are several types of dimension (aligned, orthogonal, center, and leader). You can switch between them with the palette.
Is that what you’re trying to do?
The classical rulers that there are on any program at the top and side, to position the crossair cursor
Ah, I see what you mean. No, it doesn’t, but the cursor position is shown in the bottom status bar. There’s a relative option as well (zero it by pressing space). That’s the best I can think of
Ah ok. Yes I see it now.But it’s very uncomfortable. Ok I hope they will implement it, since some mechanical shaping is required when you draw a PCB
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Depends on what you’re doing, but the vertical/horizontal mode might be useful as well (press shift+space to toggle).
I often use a custom grid with convenient offsets and spacing for that kind of thing as well.
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KiCad also has constantly active relative coordinates (dx and dy) in the status area.
Every time you hit the spacebar these coordinates are reset to 0.
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+1 for those top and side rulers.
Even though not absolutely necessary, they are one of those things that gives you a better intuitive feeling for the position and scale of what you are working on, which makes work more efficient for some users.
Does someone know if there is such a feature request already, and whether it has been discussed by developers or if they have given some indication whether it is something that might come in a future version?
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I generally find those rulers on the side of the screen a waste of pixels, but different people have different habits.
While drawing a PCB outline, I always start by setting the grid to whole millimeters. This makes it easy to draw straight lines, place mounting holes etc.
KiCad also shows every 10th grid point a bit thicker, which means that you automatically also have a grid in centimeters, and thid gives you a good idea of how big things are.
Also, when you have drawn (for example) a line, then you can edit it’s properties and directly enter coordinates.
You can also enter simple formula’s in KiCad entry boxes.
For exampe, if you enter “50” in the X-startpoint, then copy that to the X-Enpoint and add " + 42", then the X-Endpoint will be 92 millimeters.
You can also use the “other” units. For example if you enter “50+42mil” then the end result will be 51.0668mm
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Fully disagree. They aren’t waste of pixels at all.
Or I wasn’t here to ask for.
Perhaps they are useless for you, due your personal workflow. But this is your personal opinion of course. I respect it as it is.
They are like the difference between analog and digital (7 segments) clock.
The digital one give you the exact time.
The analogue, gives you the current time, how much it elapse, and how much it has to come.
Me too. But I use only 24" monitor. If I had bigger one than may be I will not wory about some wasted areas.
I don’t know how such rulers work. Do you see there exact positions or just the analog approximation?
If only analog than they are useless - you (at least me) position any mechanical elements at PCB at exact positions and not at approximated positions.
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Indeed, I already added that different people have different habits.
For me, drawing the PCB outline on a mm (and simultaneous cm) grid gives me enough of a visual reference, and once the PCB outline is drawn then that becomes my reference.
There also is a library for Calibrarion Scale footprints:
To be more constructive, can you give some examples when and how you use those rulers?
I may be able to point you to some alternative methods that you have not thought off yet.
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Such rulers are quite common.
Inkscape for example has them.
Whenever you move the mouse cursor the little triangles in the top and left hand rulers move with it.
Yes, I know, but may be there are some solutions that except the little triangle you see also the exact position (a small window with number traveling in place of that small triangle). I did not know if maybe the question was about such (hypothetical) rulers. It might have some sense. But as you need to position at the same time with X and Y axis I prefer to see both numbers together.
Edit:
If you edit some picture that will be just printed at paper than exact positions are not important and such simple rulers are helpful. If you are interested in exact positions than for me they to be helpful have to be precision.
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Hello, in win 10 I use the ruler from:
http://www.ww-a.de/pixellineal.html
You can open multiple instances of the ruler and position them freely.
I can’t read the description but first what should be said is: do they can automatically adjust to you zooming and moving around your PCB.
With all the respect, but why should I use an external application to do something that definitely can be implemented in KiCAD? I mean: it’s so basic that I can’t believe it requires enormous efforts in terms of programming.
Another lack is the impossibility to keep this ruler on the design, deleting it only when needed:
I mean: put an option that ppl can use it as they do now AND it can be also used keeping into the area till the moment it’s selected and removed.
I agree with her. It’s just that I can’t get to grips with the built-in metering systems. See image.
Try to think the other way around:
- IF this was so easy to implement
- AND IF this was so useful and desirable for ALL users
probably the developers already had implemented it.
So maybe it is:
- not so easy
- or not so useful for the majority
than you think? I also have not found a a request for rulers on gitlab - so in the last years nobody has really requested it. Maybe its not that obvious than you think.
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