Hi Folks,
When I create my symbols, although I place the ref des and value in a particular orientation on, for example, resistor and capacitor so that they run along side the body rather than sticking out at right angles, when I place them on the schematic, they always stick out at right angles to the symbol. I can obviously chamge them on the schematic, but would prefer not to have to. Is it possible to resolve that please?
Many thanks. 
The fields are automatically placed in eeschema. This can be turned off somewhere in the preferences dialog.
It is done this way as you would otherwise need to be able to define field positions and orientations for every symbol orientation (every possible combination of rotation and mirroring) as well as needing to be able to define that for every unit of a multi unit symbol.
You don’t specify what version of KiCad you are using. I’m going to assume you are using the latest stable and show you a screenshot from my install which is the latest stable on Windows (5.1.5-3). The settings you want to disable are enclosed in red (note this page of settings is on the “root” of the Eeschema tree):
The UI was changed around (IMHO made better) for 5.1.x so what you see might not be the above.
I can’t see anything that looks like it would do anything like that in preferences of either the symbol editor or eeschema.
I’m not quite clear on the point about needing to define field positions for every orientation., What I mean is if I put the ref des, for example, running along the body of the symbol, if I manually do that in eeschama, then rotate the symbol, the ref des and value stays in the same orientation in relation to the body. It surely can’t be case of difficult programming as it does exactly what I want once it’s sorted in eeschema. The problem is that I create it one way in the symbol editor, but eeschema places is differently to the symbol editor position.
I have got a kind of a work around in that I place, say, one resistor, get ref des and value fields in the right orientation and then just copy that once it’s right. It’s not ideal though.
Sorry if you understood already, it could be me not reading it correctly.
Fair point. I’m on v5.1.4 on Linux. My favoured disty is sometimes a bit behind on kicad releases.
Edit. Ah, got it. I didn’t realise you could click on the Eeschema bit! I was clicking on Display Options.
Many thanks!
Folks, Sembazuru’s screen shot showed me exactly what I needed, works perfectly now. Thank you very much.
Yeah, that is a common UX misunderstanding with KiCad (and a few other programs) at the moment. I think I’ve heard that this is being addressed in KiCad, but I’m not sure if it will be targeted to 5.1.5+n, 5.2.x, or 6.x.
(Looking around at other programs installed on this machine, LIbreOffice doesn’t have anything on the root level of the preferences tree, but Gimp does. But like KiCad, Gimp has preferences tree root items that don’t have any branches. All of the LibreOffice preferences tree root items have branches.)
Yeah, I’m kinda puzzled why people have trouble with this paradigm, most of the programs I use seem to use it. here is a random example from currently open software:
But I guess most of the software I use is aimed at technical users and have more complicated set of preferences. Other perhaps more mainstream programs seem to not use the tree, but just a list e.g.
Although my experience with modern UI is to try clicking, tapping, pressing, swiping on every part of the screen to see what happens.
I agree with you, but apparently there are enough complaints here that a decision was made among the devs to make a change.
The second screenshot is not an example for the current KiCad as it does not have a tree but just a list. And the first one seems to have no other choice than to use a tree view as it seems the leave notes are generated dynamically.
Now it’s been pointed out to me it’s obvious and doesn’t really bother me at all.
I would say though, I use techy programs every single working day: multiple IDEs for writing software, three different CAD systems, I use the GIMP, Libre Office and all sorts of different things. Maybe I’ll now go and see others with exactly the same thing, but there was just something about this layout that made me look past it.
KiCad’s UI is so bloomin’ good, it would be churlish to complain about it and I am certainly not wanting to sound like I was moaning.
eclipse and gimp use a system very similar to kicads tree view
Eclipse :Shudders: Worst. IDE. Ever. 
Rene, your knee-jerk dismissal of my posts is REALLY starting to piss me off. Read what I damn wrote and don’t be such a dick.
Sorry missed the text in the middle
That was changed in 5.99 because this was a common problem.
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