Attempt to Finish Selection (fake Autoroute): Will iteratively attempt to automatically route all selected routable items to their nearest ratsnest end. Will stop at any failure point for manual finish, then continue auto routing as much as possible.
Edit: Here’s a slightly more complicated example showing a filter + amplifier layout automatically routing:
3D Model Paths can now be resolved relative to a footprint in case you want to distribute 3d models with the footprint in one bundle easily. (Note: kicad2step does not yet support this)
The old 3d path aliases were removed, they are migrated automatically to environment variables if they are uniquely named. The old and not documented alias syntax still works in 3d model paths.
Since 3a76d426, if you select multiple footprints and/or pads in PCB editor, the corresponding symbols and/or pins will be selected in schematic editor. The last selected item is highlighted.
Now you can quickly separate footprints by functional blocks by selecting them on schematic, then using the new “Pack and Move Footprints” action in the PCB editor.
The footprints are grouped by size and sorted by reference, then packed in a square.
The initial footprint spread algorithm after updating PCB from schematic was also improved. The placement is more compact, and symbols that are close to each other on the schematic are more likely to have their footprints close on the PCB.
In the 3d model selection dialog for footprints, the thickness of the PCB preview is now derived from the board stackup. In the footprint editor, because there is no board stackup, it is editable so that parts that are meant for non-1.6mm PCBs have a meaningful preview.
When simulating digital parts, manufacturers generally do not offer SPICE models. Instead, they provide IBIS models that describe components and how their rising and falling edges behave.
Thanks to a lot of work by @adamwolf, Alexander Dewing, and others, KiCad now runs natively on Apple’s arm64 architecture.
Starting on 11-Dec-2022, the macOS nightly builds are universal binaries with native arm64 support. Version 7 will be the first stable release with arm64 support.
Has been added, separate from the gerber (non plural command). This one allows exporting multiple layers in one go in separate files and even has a --board-plot-params arg to use the settings and layer selections already saved in the pcb file. (You can use it without that arg and define some of the same settings on command line)
kicad-cli sym export svg
Allows exporting all of a library or specific symbol in a library to separate svg files.
There’s also
kicad-cli sym upgrade and kicad-cli fp upgrade that are meant for KiCad librarian usage to manage the official libraries but they are available to all