Yo, I’m looking at tearing out a dodgy, not quite properly implemented feature that I don’t think anyone uses.
If you press the button on the top toolbar in pcbnew, then switch to the legacy renderer, then right click on the canvas and go to “Global Spread and Place”, there’s a menu item “Orient All Footprints”. It sets all footprints matching a wildcard filter directly to the orientation specified in one big operation that cannot be undone.
Has anybody ever used this?? I’d like to toss it in the bin of things that waste time to maintain and just tear it out, but I want to make sure it’s not in use first.
I didn’t use it - barely knew it existed, but I only have like 3 boards with KiCAD so far. Don’t think I will need it though, if that’s a relief for you
I’ve used KiCad for 5-6 years and had no clue it was there. I have to point out that button that exposes the Global Spread and Place menu to people in IRC all the time, nobody seems to know it exists, and I suspect that this may well be the least used option in that secret menu :S
I just finished my 2nd board so no expert but If I was looking for things to get rid of that sounds like one of them.
I try to orient things similarly, but as a two layer board gets more packed the part orientation falls by the way side.
i sometimes using the global spread thing.
but never used the orient thing…
i personally think that there are better/intuitive ways to get similar results…
(with the new renderer would be better to have options how multiple selected objects rotate… all at one big or every single one)
sunny greetings
stefan
Like s_light, I do sometimes use the Global Spread and Place > Spread Out All Footprints. I like to use this just to get my parts spread out before laying out a board. I’ve never used the Orient All Footprints function (and can’t see that I would ever need it.)
button on the top toolbar in pcbnew, then switch to the legacy renderer, then right click on the canvas and go to “Global Spread and Place”, there’s a menu item “Orient All Footprints”. It sets all footprints matching a wildcard filter directly to the orientation specified in one big operation that cannot be undone.
