Please hear this voice. As users, we need a native multipage feature rather than the hierarchical pages method to draw multiple schematics. In existing design, the user is restricted to must use hierarchical pages to add more sheets. For accurate PCB design, this is okay or even more professional design practice. However it’s not flexible for those scenarios the user just wants to use global off-page net labels to make connection, and don’t want a root page always shown on the first page for a simple project.
In other word, the schematic tool should allow user to draw the schematic without hierarchical block design.
If I have 2 pages simple design such as common MCU board, I wouldn’t like to use the root sheet and draw hierarchical block for the second page.
If I have more than 10 pages design and no clear hierarchical structure, I wouldn’t like to create more than 10 empty blocks as hierarchical sheets to insert the sheets.
In my limited experience, that is not a feature that i miss particularly.
A flat design can be ‘emulated’ with the hierarchical tools using global nets and avoiding using hierarchical pins. The opposite is not true.
Just create a first page as a ‘table of contents’ and revision history and live happily everafter.
Thanks for sharing your workaround of this flat design. It’s a good reference for me before the new KiCad version has the “flat schematic” feature. I hope it can be completed still in version 8. Looking forward to it!
Release 8 is already frozen, so what it has now is what you get, so I think V9 now for improvements.
Having been forced to use a flat structure with Racal Visula (now Zuken) and having got used to hierarchical, I would not go back. Trying to figure out intersheet connections in a flat structure required an error prone process of manually adding balloons on each net showing which other sheets were linked.
I really like the hierarchical sheet system. Especially the way of reusing sheets multiple times. Not only because of less drawing work, but more because reduces the opportunity for mistakes. Each instance of the sheet will always have the same circuit. You only have to make a modification on one sheet.
Considering this:
With such a big schematic it should always be possible to create (sort of) logical sections. In an ideal hierarchy, then the hierarchy shows itself as a block diagram of the overall design, but it’s not always that straight forward.
My designs are usually quite simple. When I run out of room for a single sheet, I often split off all the power supply related circuitry (Voltage regulators, decoupling caps, etc) to a secondary sheet. All the main circuitry stays on the root sheet. The root sheet just gets a very small hierarchical sheet entry for the power related stuff.
