Tools in Eeschema

In one of the Kicad talks from Fosdem(i watched it on youtube) there was an example of creating a tool for pcbnew. Is it, or will it, be just as simple to add tools to the eeschema editor?

I’d love to make a net label tool that allows for making continuously numbered net labels for instance. With the framework/Tool manager present in pcbnew also available in eeschema this would be doable. I have yet to find resources for creating tools for eeschema. Are there any other resources to diving into the source code of Kicad?

Pcbnew has Python integration which exposes some of the Kicad internals for use in external scripting. At present, there is no equivalent in eeschema although this is planned in the future.

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Already supported.
Put a label on a wire, which ends in a number, and then press the insert key.
It will insert a new label in your schematic and auto increment the number.

You can of course also draw labels in an empty areay and then use block move or rotate to adjust position and orientation of the labels.

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Thanks, didn’t know about the insert key. Still would have liked a tool that doesn’t require pressing a key, but just continued to click. It would also just be a way to get started with looking at the KiCad source. Anyway, thanks to the both of you for the quick reply :slight_smile:

KiCad has many shortcut keys that speed up drawing, especially with semi repetitive tasks.
For anyone using KiCad for more than occasionaly it is well worth looking through the shortcut keys, and proabaly printing them on a piece of paper for reference.

With one hand on your mouse and the other on the keyboard you can draw more effectively than with the other hand in your nose or sipping coffee.

…or snorting beverages out of your nose while reading funny comments on the forum.:crazy_face:

Totally agree, just used to Altium Designer where a tool is selected and remain active until the Esc button is pressed.

And I do need my coffee, so some part of the workflow will just have to adapt to that. :slight_smile:

In the future

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