Post-v5 new features and development news

It’s been in for a bit but probably worth a mention: The routing corner style (Ctrl+/) now has 4 modes to cycle through: 45-degree, 45-degree with rounded corners, 90-degree, and 90-degree with rounded corners. The active corner style is shown in the message panel at the bottom while routing.

22 Likes

Sad news for those who have waited for the new python API. In Python API status in v6 we have been told that it’s not ready yet for v6 RC or relase and will be postponed. Existing plugins should be converted to the changed old style API to work with v6. There will be no eeschema API in v6. More details and discussion in the linked thread.

@craftyjon,
Those routing modes are AWESOME! Thanks for posting that video.

Any way of changing the corner radius ?

The router operates in a fixed-angle mode, not fixed-radius. You set the radius by where you click. Fixed-radius curves can be added using the Fillet Tracks post-processing operation.

1 Like

Ah, OK. Thanks for the explanation.

As many of you have already seen, the development version has moved to 6.0RC1 phase.

Bug fixing will continue. The new version string is seen in some places. You will get the settings migration dialog, so there will be both 5.99 (old) and 6.0 (new) folders in the user specific kicad configuration. The configuration system is identical between the last 5.99 and first RC1 commit, but you can consider starting from scratch at this point to get a fresh feeling. If someone jumps in now from 5.1, I personally recommend starting from scratch.

4 Likes

Well, in theory it will migrate. But your mileage may vary. i.e. you may find your library tables broken https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/9660

Also if you download a “lite” build of nightly MSVC right now, you will end up missing libraries because it will install to \6.0\ but without any libraries because its “lite”.

1 Like

We were already informed about the python API (see couple of posts upwards). Now Seth sent a more “official” message to the developers mailing list: https://www.mail-archive.com/kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net/msg39824.html. Especially plugin developers should read it.

4 Likes

image

tl;dr you can now invoke pip to install packages for kicad on windows easily without admin right escalation. pip packages get installed to C:\Users<username>\Documents\KiCad\6.0\3rdparty\python39\site-packages

and get loaded by kicad just fine

13 Likes

Wayne has just tagged version 6.0.0-rc2. We believe this to be the version that will become v6 but due to having made a lot of bug fixes to the code since 6.0.0-rc1, we’d like to get more testing done before we finally tag 6.0.0 in case there are any final critical bugs that should be addressed before release.

We are now in a soft code freeze where only critical and high priority bug fixes will be addressed and only after code review by two other lead developers.

If no critical/high priority bugs are open on Monday morning (20-Dec), 6.0.0 will be tagged then and the packaging process can begin.

See wayne’s announcement here: https://www.mail-archive.com/kicad-developers@lists.launchpad.net/msg39856.html

Please download the latest nightly and use it as much as you can, reporting any issues encountered (in particular any crashes or data loss) by going to Help->Report bug (you will need to create a gitlab account in order to report any issues).

image

Thanks to everyone that made this possible!

15 Likes

Christmas came earlier:

Thank you developers, and have a nice holidays! :))

5 Likes

Presumably “Testing” will soon become pre 6.0.1 and “Nightly” 6.99

Time for a post-v6 thread :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Gotta be close to being released now. :partying_face:

Fair warning. It’ll be a few days before the stable builds are available.

So I should stop hitting F5? :grin:

2 Likes

6.9.9 already :slight_smile:

Application: KiCad

Version: 6.9.9-unknown-0d1748c91c~144~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Am I correct in assuming that this discussion will present a notice when 6.0 is posted as the stable release? Whoever replies next to this discussion will have the honor of post number 400.

In 10 months, @JeffYoung will be telling people you better download 6.99 because it is more stable than v6.1.x :smiley:

1 Like