Something like this should be inside KiCAD, not just for footprints, but also for edge cuts or essentially anything else that does need the ability to have a more intuitive/interactive way of editing distances/sizes/angles.
That’s really nice! It would be especially useful for those components with oddly-spaced pins, like SD card sockets.
I agree. A functionality for parametric constraints for any object (footprint, graphics etc.) would be great. If you have ability to either enter the coordinates of an object manually (as it is done right now) or constrain the object with dimensions from some other object on the board (which would override manually entered coordinates of the object), that would be extremely useful.
Has the code been released?
I need to do offline work.
Hi! The whole thing runs in the browser (javascript), so you download the code whenever you want. Feel free to improve it. I know that the handling is shit. I am not proud of that. 
2 Likes
Thanks for the humility, but this is a great piece of work. I am not a Java programmer but I suggest you make it available for other KiCad (contact them and see what the best way to proceed forward is) developers to enhance it. It really is better than a diamond in the ruff!
What is the download link?
something like:
wget --no-check-certificate -r http://fpmagic.engineerjs.com/
and you’ll get all the html and js code
it seems it works only with chrome
Maurice
eventually just a ‘page - save as’ also works to get all needed files.
just to share my approach on this:
i use the FreeCAD Sketcher to do the calculations
i do this after i have designed the 3d model in freecad- so this is the first check if i have read all datasheet numbers / measured all things correctly…
next step is be to write a FreeCAD plugin that can convert a sketch to a KiCad footprint… (if someone has spare time left pleas do it
)
but yeah - in the end it would also be cool if some of this just directly works in KiCad…
sunny greetings
stefan
3 Likes
One of the best solution I’ve seen. If the module I have is complicated I tend to draw it in a CAD program and then get all the distances. Otherwise I draw it on a piece of paper and then write it down before sketching it again in KiCad. This would be excellent addition to KiCad. As the matter of fact to any PCB development program.
1 Like
FYI - Maurice pointed out it was for personal use and no guarantees.
I downloaded all the files but the dimension would not work locally.
I also confirmed that it will not load under Firefox or IE… only chrome.
It would be interesting to see if others have got it to work locally.
@jwzumwalt
to let the scripts work locally you need to edit index.htm
`
I still do not get it to work with IE.
Do you have a zip file that you have working?
It works only with Chrome
Got it working with Chrome - boy do I feel silly 
It took a few minutes to also point the CSS and icons in the right place.
Here is a 1.1mb zip that can be download and works out of the box.
www.zoomaviation.com/temp/fpmagic.zip
This looks great. But I have one question. Instead of developing something what’s live outside KiCad, do you think about integrating it into KiCad ? Because that so many great things like this are for KiCad a lot but they live outside it. Yes, it is a much more work but KiCad community worth it, it is a great function.
1 Like
this is a really nice feature! would really like to see it in the kicad footprint editor
it could be really nice to make it possible to select the center of the X or Y axis instead of only the outer edges
also the 2 decimal round is not very handy
very nice job!
The FreeCAD plugin suggested by @s_light would be better than trying to maintain a Javascript browser method in the long term and would fit better with the 3D model STEP import story
just for reference, this approach is now available as a FC WB
3 Likes
Wow, this thread started 3 years ago.
Anyway a parametric way of generating footprints is great
Using FreeCAD is definitely the best way to do it.
1 Like