Hi there,
First: thanks for the really great software, still learning.
What annoys a bit is the really large canvas size, which difficults scrolling because the scroll steps get very large. In my case (KiCAD 5.0.2 running on Windows10), the canvas height is about 15 times the height of one page (A4 size in landscape). Is there a way to reduce this?
Eeschema / File / Page Settings.
Pcbnew / File / Page Settings.
In both you can select “custom size” and type in some numbers of the size you want.
You can also define your own custom page layout and use that for your projects.
I find the title block on the pages much to big, and you can apparently remove it or make it smaller on a custom page, but I have not yet bothered to figure out how to do that.
In the KiCad Project Manager there is a “Page Layout Editor” for this, and it starts OK, but beware that you have to figure out where to put your custom page layout. The default pages are very likely in a read- only directory.
Edit:
Just made a custom layout, by simply taking an existing and removing all borders, so only the title block remains and saved it in a custom location. Then put it in an existing drawing and it works as expected.
I also never ever use scroll functions in KiCad. I find it much more effective to zoom out with the scroll wheel to get an overview, and then zoom in again on a more interesting location.
I have also trained myself to use the zoom-out/zoom-in technique. When you are accustomed to it, it is actually quite fast because you don’t have to move the cursor over to the edge of the display where the scroll bars are located. However . . . . VERY FEW Windows programs use that approach. This week I started working in KiCAD after being away from it for about five months, and for the first day or two I was always trying to move the display around by clicking on the scroll bars, which (unlike almost every other Windows program) don’t work in KiCAD. In fact, the only other program I can think of where the zoom-out/zoom-in technique is effective is LTSpice - and LTSpice defines the sense of the scroll wheel opposite to KiCAD, so half the time I zoom out when I want to zoom in, etc. (But LTSpice has a REALLY EFFECTIVE feature where left-click-and hold on an empty space in the display, while in SELECT mode, lets you pan the display around - sort of like you might move an object or sheet around under a fixed-position magnifier.)
Dale
I can not remember when i actually used the scroll bars of any program. That is after all what the mouse wheel is for. (In y direction which is normally the only needed direction the mouse wheel typically maps directly. For most programs there is also a key that can be used to scroll in x and another one for zoom.)
In kicad it is zoom without key, scrolling by using crtl/shift (x/y)
Also middle click plus drag is quite useful for panning.
Zooming with the scroll wheel is a fairly common feature of programs.
It works with FreeCad, Open streetmaps and google maps, while other programs you need to press [Ctrl] in combination with the scrollwheel to zoom, and it pans without.
The center of the zoom is sometimes configurable. I used to like to have center of the zoom on the cursor location, but KiCad’s way of panning the view so the cursor is in the middle of the screen works even better (after getting used to it).
Scrollbars are sometimes usefull with long documents, for example PDF datasheets of 30 pages, but with 400 page datasheets (no exception) it becomes pretty useless.
I normally use the scroll wheel but occasionally use a laptop where it’s impossible to find a scroll wheel. I gave it a thought and think that the scrollbars could be optionally made to behave so that they would cover only the bounding box of the design (plus some).
Hi paulvdh,
I was not talking about the page size, but the canvas size. Not sure about the correct term, I mean the scrollable area. I’m happy with the A4 layout and would not like to change it actually. What bothers me is that this is only 1/15th of the canvas size.
Talking about scrolling. I too avoid the scrollbar when I can. I prefer the page up / page down keys for shifting by about one view, and the arrow keys for finer control. Both don’t work here on my KiCAD setup. Moving like this seems more practical to me when I’m working on the edge of the view, than zoomin out, shift, and zoom in again.
Hi Rene,
thanks for the hint about scrolling with key / mouse wheel combinations. Helps a lot.
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