Jon Evans sent an important message about a big change which may affect nightly build users now and will effect everyone in 6.0. The settings backend system has been changed.
Initial code was merged to support rounded traces. It has to be noted that only the datamodel seems to be implemented at the moment, so the only way to generate them is the current dev-version of my native Altium importer:
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Looks wonderfull.
For this test case the use of curved tracks is more easthtetic than usefull.
Some time ago however II tried to help to find a practical workaround for KiCad’s lack of circular tracks on a pretty simple board which is almost impossible to route without rounded tracks, and for any doubters about the usefullness of this feature I’d like to drop a link to that project:
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You can now launch a bug report from the About window, and it will automatically include your KiCad version info. See the new buttons in the top right:
(Please continue to follow the other instructions in the bug report template: first search the issue tracker to see if your problem has already been reported, and if not, fill out the other requested information in the bug description)
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To add what Jon said - it opens a new issue page in gitlab. You still need a gitlab account.
A long awaited feature was integrated: We can grab footprints now:
kicad_grab_footprint
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It’s no real Push’n’Shove at the moment, but a good start anyways. There are some serious bugs to solve (I’m going to report something soon).
Seeing as it seems v6 will have something like a stackup planner will that also mean that things like per layer length tuning and node-node resistance measurement might be a thing. Or no real interest?
There’s a new color theme editor:
You can now place multiple color theme files in the colors folder inside your user settings folder (there’s a handy button to open that folder, too). You can get these theme files from something like Thomas’ repo, which has been updated to include JSON versions of the themes that are compatible with the latest nightlies, or you can create your own!
The color theme editor lets you create new themes inside KiCad. You can copy/paste colors between slots (just right-click a color button), reset one or all colors to KiCad default values, and see a live preview of your changes right inside the preferences window.
There will always be a theme called “User” that reflects whatever your existing color settings were before this feature was released.
Note: the live preview currently doesn’t show all types of items. I wanted to get this out for people to play with at this point, even though it’s not completely finished.
Along with this comes some other related new features:
- LibEdit can now optionally use a different color theme than Eeschema (configure this in LibEdit preferences)
- Plotting in Eeschema can now use a different color theme than the main window, and you can plot background colors to PDF, SVG, and PS files. Configure this in the Plot Schematic dialog:
Please report bugs if you find them! I’ll be expanding this to support the other applications soon, but it should already be working well enough to use on the schematic side.
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For “per layer length tunning” you could modify my Length stats action plugin to report length of tracks on each layer. It is not exactly what you want, but it is something.
As for the “node-node resistance measurement” use pad2pad distance action plugin. It also reports cumulative resistance assuming 35um layer stackup excluding via resistance. Note that it calculates distance/resistance on tracks only. If you have a zone somewhere this is not taken into account.
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Could a moderator move the discussions about DRC to a new thread?
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Moved DRC discussion to a new thread
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Thanks David. Here’s the original message by Jeff:
This doesn’t work perfectly yet, there are problems with checkboxes and visibility. But the crashes which happened with the first iteration have been fixed.
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I believe the issues with the checkboxes and visibility (on MSW) were recently fixed. So if anyone is still getting them with a current nightly please let me know (or log a bug).
Cheers,
Jeff.
More hotkey definitions available for the 3D viewer. Shared commands (such as zoom in, zoom out) also now respect the hotkeys set for the rest of the suite.
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Really useful, nowadays I still use some personal Python / Matlab algorithm to this work.
Propose, if it is not already done: could have a button in each option line to “place” the calculated configuration. The focus change to Eeschema and the cursor will place the configuration with the connection (as happens with the parts).
Other idea: in the log write the maximum and minimum value reached with the resistor-solution and the nominal tolerance selected.
Something like this where it can find optimal resistor values from the e12/e24 series for a voltage divider would be my suggestion for a resistor tool.