I’ve been using Eagle for years but now after installing KiCad for the first time I think I will be using it for all my new PCBs. I went through Getting Started tutorial and I really like how KiCad works.
I have a question about the tools for creating the symbol. When I was creating the SPST switch symbol I first created a horizontal line and then I tried to rotate it around one of its end points by some arbitrary angle but couldn’t find a way to do that.
Is there a way to rotate a selected object by an arbitrary angle while creating new symbols?
BTW, is there a way to assign right mouse button to “rotate” command?
No, lines in symbols are pretty simple, they have a start point and an end point, and there is no “rotate” at all. You can only drag the end points. (But that can result in a slanted line of course).
The reason why I wanted to rotate the horizontal line instead of drawing it at an angle was because that way the line length would be very precise and I could rotate it by exactly 45 degrees so the symbol would look as the line representing a switch was lifted from its closed position.
I’ll do some research if it is possible to edit the end point coordinates or maybe use a temporarily drawn circle as a helper to determine the line length.
Your best bet is to make some smart use of the grid.
It’s easy to put lines at 45 degrees on a coarse grid. The drawing capabilities are quite limited, but in general there is not much need to be very precise for schematic symbols. It is important in KiCad though to keep the pins on a 50 “mil” grid.
There is a workaround for lines. All of KiCad’s file formats are text based, and you can modify lines if needed with a calculator and a text editor. But why would you need precision for schematic symbols in the first place?
