In KiCad 8, is there a way to check if the footprint has a 3D model or just quickly cross check some measurements? In KiCad 7, you were able to do some measurements or check if the model had a 3D part when selecting footprints for parts in the schematic editor.
Was this removed altogether?
One of the things that I’ll often do, is that for footprints that I’m not creating myself, I’ll at least quickly cross check some measurements and if it has a 3D model, but with that option gone, it’s somewhat inconvenient now.
*Sorry for the large image, I couldn’t upload two different images cause of new user rules.
For all assignment activities (choose a footprint for a symbol) the “Footprint Chooser” is now the standard way to select a footprint.
But the footprint library browser is not completely gone. You can still invoke this window from pcbnew–>View–>Footprint Library Browser.
I’m not sure if this dialog will remain or eventually also be removed.
I couldn’t … cause of new user rules
Read and follow this FAQ-article to overcome the new user restrictions: New Member Information
Same happens when creating symbols - if you try to assign a footprint there, you need to also open footprint editor, navigate to the footprint you want to select and only then you can use a ruler to double-check dimensions.
This is pretty annoying.
The Footprint Browser is a vastly superior UX. I can think of no reason to change to a more cumbersome UI with less functionality.
I don’t want to change your opinion, but in my view this change is more positiv than negative.
the footprint chooser allows to search in all libraries at the same time, while the footprint browser needs to select a library first and only then filters the content form that library. (that was a common complain)
footprint chooser has now two checkboxes (if invoked from a symbol):
show only footprints with correct pad count
show only footprints which are pass the defined footprint filter string
footprint chooser has now two sections which also improve assigning FP:
recently used
already placed in this project forget this, confused it with symbol chooser
more uniform look (== consistency) and behaviour as the footprint chooser is now always used, not sometimes the footprint chooser, sometimes the footprint browser. Also the footprint chooser looks like the symbol chooser in eeschema. This is also good for consistency.
You are right with the lost measurement tool and the missing 3D view. As a workaround you could open the footprint library browser (from top toolbar) and leave this window open in parallel to the other kicad windows, so you easily (ALT+TAB) switch to that dialog.
It’s the first release with the footprint chooser as standard dialog, so we should give it a try and also wait a little bit. This dialog could be improved over time, depending on your feedback.
As example there was change in the search filter already (I still must tryout the result) and for the 3D-viewer there is a already a open gitlab issue:
When invoking the footprint chooser from the symbol editor the box to filter the footprint by the number of pads is missing.
Here’s what it looks like normally (in a schematic editor):
@baldengineer if there are other suggestions you have for improving the chooser please also open issues.
The old browser dialog was hard to maintain alongside it and we don’t want to have two different ways of doing the same thing, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that we don’t want to improve the chooser.
For the issue #16173 on showing 3D models in the footprint chooser, a commit has been made to the master branch and the issue has been closed.
It might be worth testing in the next nightly build (8.99).
Why in a major release a feature was removed and we need to work with a “work-around”?
Now do we need to wait for 1 year before to have a re-thinked feature and/or be back?
Now do we need to wait for 1 year before to have a re-thinked feature and/or be back
Who is “we”?
If you want you are free to wait one year before you get the 3D feature back.
I invite all others who have missed the 3D-view to just look at yesterdays testing version and discover two new added icons on the bottom of the footprint chooser. Please test also if these icons are displayed at all situations (because the footprint chooser can be invoked from multiple different places).
This was made possible by a nice written bugreport, followed by some programming work (done by J.P. charras if I remember correctly). Not the slightest aggressive statement was necessary for this.
A feature or functionality which existed earlier but was accidentally or as a side-effect of another change removed for some reason or another are often handled as bugs, not as new features.
There seems to be something buggy, because when I open the footprint chooser from symbol properties → footprint field library icon in the symbol editor, there are two checkboxes and two icons on top of each other in the bottom left corner when the window is first opened:
@hmk : throw it to gitlab. Seems to be a linux-only issue, on my Win10 installation the icons are good placed right from the start.
But there is a additional (more theoretical) issue if the symbol has a very long footprint filter string (or multiple footprint filter strings). Then both new icons are shoved out of the footprint chooser window.
Post away.
