Setting advanced environmental variables/Use cloud storage for config files

[Ratterbass]

Hello all,

I use KiCad on multiple systems and I want to sync my configurations, libraries etc. by using either a github repo and/or an SMB share on my NAS. The problem now is that my KiCad installation doesn’t change config directory when I use the KICAD_CONFIG_HOME env variable.

I tried setting it in the configure path dialog - didn’t work (as expected as it’s mentioned in the documentation)

I tried adding the paths to my .zshrc file and push the variables with source ~/.zshrc

the content of the file look like this

export KICAD_CONFIG_HOME="/Users/MYUSER/Documents/GitHub/Electronics/KiCAD/preferences"

export KICAD_DOCUMENTS_HOME="/Users/MYUSER/Documents/GitHub/Electronics/KiCAD"

but KiCad still looks for its config in ~/Library/Preferences/kicad/8.0

Has anyone an idea on how to tackle this without having to manually reload config files everytime I change something on one machine or setting up a script on every machine that runs everytime I close KiCad?

Main systems: MacOS 14.7
Secondary systems: TrueNAS scale with KiCad Container running

[Mineotopia]

Off-Topic: But which KiCad services do you run on your NAS? I’m in the process of setting up a TrueNAS server as well and this got my curious

[Ratterbass]

I run the KiCad 8.0 Container link to container. I have yet to set up everything as I want it, but the goal is to 1) open designs from any device with web access (like you can with Fusion360 web, just actually functioning ) to show/review them and 2) if needed work remotely on projects when I don’t have access to my main machines

But for this to work as I want it, I need to be able to automatically sync the configs (and projects/libs etc of course but that’s easier)

[Mineotopia]

huh, that looks very intriguing, nice!

[Ratterbass]

Feel free to chime in once you try to set it up yourself!

[devstuff]

GUI apps in MacOS ignore environment variables set in the shell, so you have to use a LaunchAgent script. Setting up either or both KICAD_DOCUMENTS_HOME and KICAD_CONFIG_HOME is described here by Chris Wilson.

Close KiCad first, then use Finder to copy the contents of the /Users/MYUSER/Library/Preferences/kicad tree to your new location. Same for documents. Create the LaunchAgent configs, customized to your liking, then restart KiCad.

To activate the configs run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.kicad.env.KICAD_CONFIG_HOME.plist and/or launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.kicad.env.KICAD_DOCUMENTS_HOME.plist