Ripup (or delete) an already routed track

Hi!
I searched but found no straightforward answer. During design of boards, sometimes I need to move one or more components from one place to anothe. I am an old OrCAD user and there I had “Ripup net”, “Ripup connection” or “Ripup DRC box” to delete one connection, full net or an entire region. I can’t find something like this in Kicad. I’m using Windows Kicad 6.0.
Many thanks!

Hi
I know what you mean that when you click on a trace only the segment gets selected. If you just want to move components, which are already connected to traces use D to drag. This is different to M move, the traces change shape and stay connected. With u you can expand your selection to the whole trace between two pads. Then delete the selection with delete.
In the Hotkeys menu there is also a option for Select All Tracks in Net which you can bind to any favorable Hotkey, to select the entire net.

Did you try using the “Interactive Delete Tool”?

I would but I can’t find it…

Hi, you should accommodate “Select/Expand connection” action:

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Thanks, “U” shortcut works for me. However it should have been more straightforward. Unless you look at the shortcut list, I see no option to find this tool. At least not in a reasonable time.

However it should have been more straightforward. Unless you look at the shortcut list, I see no option to find this tool. At least not in a reasonable time.

It’s not possible to put every command/action directly at the working screen. This would reduce the available working area too much.
It’s also quite normal that a workflow changes between two programs. Your searched function for instance is already available through RMB-click on a track–>context-menu–>selection (first entry of context-menu)–>select all/select all connected tracks. This is how the Kicad-workflow mostly goes: select something, than change. So the selection is quite important.

To give also a possibly useful information/hint: look for the hotkey “Delete Full Track” (I can’t tell the original hotkey as I have assigned my own hotkey-combination). I personally use it quite often as it saves the “selection”-step and so saves some mouse-meters/click-actions.

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I totally understand what you say. Thank you for your tips!

In KiCad 5, clicking on a trace with the Route Tracks tool selected the entire trace.
In KiCad 6, this changed to the “U” key when hovering over the trace.

I understand that KiCad 6 focused on aligning the keyboard shortcuts and UI behavior between eeshema and pcbnew, and in most regards the improvements are colossal, but this was an odd change. Also requiring the user to press a key while hovering over a trace requires good dexterity and coordination. The alternative is to click each and every segment of the trace (including small/hidden segments) and delete them one-by-one.

In my personal opinion, on a mountain of exemplary improvements to KiCad 6, pressing “U” to grab an entire segment is just odd. I worry about overwhelming windows of Options as much as the next person, but I think this one deserves a spot. Along with temporarily pressing Shift to constrain 45/90. Currently a Shift-Space is required to toggle it.

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