Setting up v5 on a mac

Layout Footprints
1

On yet another different computer. This time, a macintosh. I brought in my schematics, boards, symbols and footprints from backup.

My custom symbols are in /Users/tomruby/Documents/KiCad/Libraries. Their nicname was “Tentoes.”

My custom footprints are in /Users/tomruby/Documents/KiCad/Libraries.pretty. Their nicname was, annoyingly, “Libraries.”

Of course, All the footprint libraries are coming from ${KISYSMOD}/ while KiCad has nicely installed them in /Library/Application Support/kicad/modules so in PCBNEW, under Preferences - Library Manager, I edit all the lines to say /Libraries/Application Support/kicad/Modules/… instead of ${whatever}. I also added /Users/tomruby/Documents/KiCad/Libraries.pretty to the bottom of the list.

In ESchema, under Preferences - Manage Symbol Libraries, I noticed that it defines KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR to be /Library/Application Support/kicad/library, and I’m wondering if I really had to do all that tedius editing for footprints. It does not seem to have my “Tentoes” library, so I added /Users/tomruby/Documents/KiCad/Libraries/Tentoes.lib

Perhaps now it will no longer have to “rescue” symbols.

2

Library setup is not dependent on the operating system. It works the same everywhere but the default locations are of course slightly different.

I have written a detailed explanation on how to properly setup libraries. It is of course your choice if you want to invest time into doing such a thing but i feel the time investment necessary might have repaid itself already if you talk about setting up everything on yet another machine. Library management in KiCad version 5

You could have also just set the value of KISYSMOD to point to that location. This is done with the path variables editor found in the main windows preference menu. (I think v5.1 will also have the path setup in every other tool as well.)

I however find it strange why this was not done by the installer. (Or more precisely on first time running kicad.)
Did you by any chance copy your personal settings files from some other pc instead of letting kicad do this for itself?

3

Yes. It appears version 5 is smarter than 4 was.

4

So don’t do what I did, they seem to have thought of that for you:wink:

5

For footprints this was the case already in v4. And even the symbol side could be setup that way with a lot of dedication. (read: one needed a text editor for that.)

6

Yes. I did that setup a couple times in v4. You didn’t HAVE to use a text editor, but it sure was easier that way.

7

If you wanted a global setup for symbol libs then you really needed a text editor as you needed to edit the default kicad.pro file in the template folder. (There was no interface to do it from within kicad.)

8

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