Unable to "Select Preferred Editor"

When I start KiCad, I see the libraries in the left of my screen. When I right-click on one of those libraries
(one I made myself or not it doesn’t matter) I see a menu with “Edit in a Text Editor”, activating that option I get the info “No default editor found, you must choose it”, I “OK” this, but strange enough I can’t select one of the text editors on my system (e.g. nano, joe…), they just don’t show up even though I know where they are: e.g. /usr/bin or /bin
What causes this behaviour or how to work around it.

kind regards,
Hugo

Did you set it in the KiCAD main dialog?

image

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Did you set it in the KiCAD main dialog?

I tried to do that too, but I have exactly the same problem, a lot of programs are visible in the file selector, but nano or joe e.g. are not selectable…

kind regards,
Hugo

If you installed kicad using flatpack (as you mentioned somewhere else) then you might be a bit restricted in what external tools it is allowed to call. Such special packages often run in some form of sandbox mode where you do not have full access to all programs.

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If you installed KiCad using flatpack (as you mentioned somewhere else) then you might be a bit restricted in >what external tools it is allowed to call. Such special packages often run in some form of sandbox mode >where you do not have full access to all programs.

Maybe that causes the problem, unfortunately I have to use the flatpack-version 5, as long as the ppa-version by js-reynaud greys out the option Copy default global symbol library table (recommended)

kind regards,
Hugo

I would guess this is because you need to install the library packages as well.

If this is not the case then simply download the tables directly from github and manually put them into the config directory.

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I would guess this is because you need to install the library packages as well.

If this is not the case then simply download the tables directly from github and manually put them into the >config directory.

Could you supply me the github reference for downloading the correct tables i.e.
git clone https://github.com/???

and

where/which exactly is the config-directory i.e. is this a local directory like ~/.config/kicad or a system-wide
directory?

thanks in advance
Hugo

Sometimes the official web page is useful: https://kicad.org/libraries/download/.

Direct links to the library tables for KiCad v5.0:


They must be in the user’s config directory.

  • Unix (Linux etc.): The user’s home directory + .config/kicad/ (= $HOME/.config/kicad/)

  • Windows XP: “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data” + kicad\ (= %APPDATA%\kicad)

  • Windows Vista & later: “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming” + kicad\ (= %APPDATA%\kicad)

  • OSX: The user’s home directory + /Library/Preferences/kicad/

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With install library packages i meant install them using your operating systems package manager! The library tables are not the only thing this package contains (It also contains the library files them selves. If you only download the lib tables you will end up with a setup that points to non existing files. So if you want to go the manual road then you need to download the full library package from the download pages of the library.)

With install library packages i meant install them using your operating systems package manager! The library tables are not the only thing this package contains (It also contains the library files them selves. If you only download the lib tables you will end up with a setup that points to non existing files. So if you want to go the manual road then you need to download the full library package from the download pages of the library.)

Translated to commands for Mint 19 Cinnamon:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:js-reynaud/kicad-5
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad kicad-libraries kicad-symbols kicad-templates kicad-footprints kicad-packages3d
sudo apt install kicad-doc-en

kind regards,
Hugo

If you installed kicad using flatpack (as you mentioned somewhere else) then you might be a bit restricted in what external tools it is allowed to call. Such special packages often run in some form of sandbox mode where you do not have full access to all programs.

I did a fresh install of KiCad 5 under Mint19/Cinnamon using the ppa of js-reynaud(https://launchpad.net/~js-reynaud). With this install I am able to select nano as the editor, however when I highlight a library and then right-click it to select “Edit in a Text Editor”, nothing happens at all…

is this a bug?

kind regards,
Hugo

You can’t open nano directly from a GUI application, it’s a text mode program, it must be opened in a terminal window.

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