Selecting and editing Board Outline

Layout
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When I want edit a trace width, I select a section of the trace, hit ‘U’ then ‘E’ to edit, choose a new width then OK. Short and sweet.

When I want to change board outline (or presumably any other graphics) I seem to need to select every segment, or mass select by dragging then filter the outline - OK so far so good - I hit ‘E’ for edit and nothing happens. Am I missing some other technique?

If this is missing functionality should I have a look through Gitlab Issues to see if someone has requested this? The code would already seem to exist for traces. One of the things that drove me crazy with Eagle is that almost nothing was orthogonal, meaning a key command or technique in one part of the program would not work in another part.

OK - the solution is:
The really excellent “Edit Text and Graphic Properties” dialog. Eliminated many minutes of clicking for no good reason.

Does that mean I no long wish I could just edit a selection as in other domains (traces) or PCB? Not at all. In my view the functionality should be there - but this fabulous editor makes it a lot less urgent.

2

Copper traces (called “tracks” in KiCad) behave differently then graphics items, and PCB outlines (On the Edge.Cuts layer) are graphics items.

KiCad’s editing tools for these are perfectly suited for simple to moderate complexity PCB outlines. You can (temporarily) turn off all other layers in the “Layers Manager”. Just right click in the area on the right of your screen with all the layer names, and select a layer selection form the popup menu, or change visibility for layers individually by clicking on the checkbox for a layer.

For complicated PCB outlines, it’s better to design the PCB outline in a mechanical CAD program, export as .DXF file and import that in KiCad.

3

I take it that are at least a couple ways around the problem - all good. One point I hoped to make is that a polished and fluid interface is worth a lot. Orthogonality, where possible is also a real help to users.

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