That grid size menu accessible with right click, it would be great if that would be also accessible in preferences next to the grid settings.
I mean there in the preferences, there is “snap to grid” settings, which is very confusing, as whatever you set there has nothing to do with the “min grid spacing” setting just next to it… that “snap to grid” setting in preferences is related to “grid size” setting which is accessible completely elsewhere.
It’s very unnecessarily confusing.
Also, after fresh install, the default grid size was set to minimum, which is quite unreasonable. The default should be something which makes it easy to use the symbols available in KiCad.
Also, in general, I feel like KiCad’s has big potential and some great features, but lot of it is overshadowed by some terrible UI/UX decisions. Maybe some paid UI/UX designer could help? Or maybe just paying more attention to it?
Or I wonder, If we users spent our time writing down a this kind of UI/UX inconsistencies / non-technical bugs, would that be worth anything? Or would it be just ignored? I ask, because in half of the open-source communities i’ve seen, the idea was, that if you’re not coding, then you’re not in a position to say how the UI/UX should look like… Like coming up with elegant and ergonomic UI/UX required no work, was worth nothing, and UI/UX was in general unimportant… but in my opinion, if some UI/UX improvement can save a single minute of life of every user, and we multiply that minute of time by the amount of users to imagine the workhours wasted by poor UI/UX, then I don’t see why is there so little focus on UI/UX.
I have big respect for people who are able to code such a complex thing as KiCad, but fact is, that a good coder usually isn’t a very good UI/UX designer (and vice versa).
I can assure that the development team takes usability/UX seriously and listens to the users.
You can write a list and post it to the “Feature request chat” section to get feedback from other users. In the end each wish/bug should be reported separately to the issue database.
Paid by whom? KiCad already accepts donations, but the resources are still limited. The development is driven by different kinds of needs, and usability is only one of them. Yet sometimes we have a long back and forth discussion about some UX or UI detail, and minor needs aren’t buried under larger technical feature wishes.
The developers have actually done very much for UI/UX already. The whole schematic editing paradigm was changed between v5.1 and 6.0, along with the technical backend. No wonder there are small problems here and there.
Many users think that the grid problem in the schematic editor is a prominent one, especially for new users – I mean the need to use a specific grid to stay compatible with KiCad symbols. Developers know that, too, and agree in principle. There have been talk about even not using the grid altogether, or at least making things not to depend on a certain grid.
If it is so, it’s a genuine bug. I don’t remember if there has been an issue for this or talk about this. Do you use the latest KiCad version, 6.0.7?
I’m not sure what this problem is. Honestly, most users tend to learn such things quickly and don’t think them anymore once they find out how things work. This doesn’t of course nullify what you (and me) said about the importance of UX, but nevertheless… You can always make a detailed suggestion which would satisfy most of the users.
If you aren’t still convinced about the priority of the UX in the development process, you can read Misleading "Update footprints" text in "Update PCB from Schematic" (lp:#1838551) (#3149) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab and kicad pcbnew duplicate reference designations (#4012) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab (the latter is my favorite, it starts with explanation of technical implementation but continues with amusingly detailed analysis of UI strings).
UM22.04 KiCad 6.0.7
Didn’t mention what the grid setting you had and am complaining about. Mine was at 0.050 which seems to be the accepted setting for use with symbols.
Right click and set to 0.100. Now is it possible you accidentally pressed N which changes grid. Press N and you can watch the grid change.
Besides the right click the settings are also available in the menu under View shown in attached image.
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