Sure, I agree - that doesn’t sound safe but the point about ‘nightly’ builds is to pick up problems. If this is a consistent and repeatable error then it should be reported.
Yes, it seems to be repeated and I have reported this a few times here now. I will not report on GitLab, it’s not easy to understand.
It seems to me that your issue is likely caused by not understanding path variables in kicad. You have not clearly explained what it is you are doing that results in the issue. If you can find exact steps you take that reliably reproduce the issue it will help us help you.
“It seems to me that your issue is likely caused by not understanding path variables in kicad”
May be so. But if it was not very clear in the video I will do my last try tomorrow to try to explain it again. As it just happened here again right now. This time I tested to rename the “path” SSD and once again it was impossible to “configure path” in KiCad to that SSD, or any hard disk/SSD/path, as I also showed in the video. Then, again, I reinstalled an earlier version of KiCad, and now, once again I could “configure path” in KiCad. After that I updated to the latest build, and it seems to still work then, at least the last 5 minutes…
Apparenlty the paths are set up wrongly here.
I can not be of much help as I only run Linux, and also do not know very well how KiCad hanles those environment variables for the paths, nor do I know what they should be for windows.
If I try to change one of KiCad’s default path variables in KiCad I get the message:
When I look at the environment variables from a terminal window, I only see 5 of KiCad’s “environment variables”.
@paulvdh that is linux nightly specific thing, if I recall correctly. Some distribution packages (ubuntu?) define environment variables in kicad nightly launcher script externally to the kicad config/process, that’s why you get that warning. Not the case on Mac (which OP is using)
@TheSwede in your screencast deleting the path is expected to not work (if you want to delete the variable you need to select the row, not value, then press delete or click trash icon below). But changing folder to another one should work and looks like a bug to me.
Which version worked? Also when you say worked do you mean editing the variable or seeing the models in viewer or both?
Is this the latest one that doesn’t work? Again, which part doesn’t work specifically.
I don’t use kicad on mac so won’t be able to help further but someone with mac should be able to confirm your issue if you narrow it down to specific thing like:
Version x.xxx.xxxx, editing path variable by clicking on open folder icon and selecting a folder doesn’t work and shows message “xxxx”.
Bug reports raised here may not be seen by the developers though - I know it’s a pain but reporting a bug on GitLab is fairly straightforward - there is even a direct link to report bugs within KiCad.
You seems to have another variable there which is empty. This causes the error message. This is a small bug, only the currently edited path should be checked, and only when the users tries to close the dialog all variables should be checked.
EDIT: if in the same dialog session I delete the empty variable, it still complains. Yes, there really is a bug in the checking.
I can confirm that when “KICAD_USER_TEMPLATE_DIR” is empty the “ERROR Environment variable path cannot be empty” message is triggered when editing another environment variable is triggered. I did not see this earlier because I filled in that variable myself a long time ago. (and KiCad won’t let me “empty” it). I had to modify the file “/home/paul/.config/kicad/5.99/kicad_common.json” to test this.
@TheSwede Does your problem go away if you fill in some (possibly bogus) path in the “KICAD_USER_TEMPLATE_DIR” environment variable?
For other people:
Some confirmation that “KICAD_USER_TEMPLATE_DIR” exists and is by default empty would be nice to have before making a bug report. (Confirmation that other environment variables cannot be modified when that var is empty is a bonus).
Sorry, I don’t know what you mean here. I did never change the “/Users/MyHomeFolder/Documents/KiCad/5.99/template/” path. That directory exists on my computer, it’s an empty folder created by the KiCad installer.
It doesn’t matter if the directory is empty. The variable value is empty in you latest screencast. There is a variable name in the dialog but value (Path) column is empty.
It was not empty, it was like this (but I cover it in white in the movie) as I don’t want to post personal paths in public.
I hope this is ok.
KiCad 6 nightly “kicad-msvc.r24608.e81b516a82-x86_64”:
The problems I had with back annotation after Geographical Annotation were due ro an error on my part.
Gerber generation really works fine. It seems the Gerber files are free from “hundreds of” ubused pad definitions. And there is the info which layer the file belongs to.
The drill files: There should be a possibility to generate ONE file for both the plated and non-plated holes. Is there already? The preferred is separate files as is the case now. But there might be card manufacturers that want all in one and the same file.
Yes, it’s quite obvious because the option description is clear in the drill file dialog, maybe your eyes skipped it?
EDIT: it’s PTH and NPTH for Plated and Non Plated Through Holes.
That’s right, my eyes missed it. I agree in “Not recommended …”.
On my wishlist:
The possibility to select whether those objects which are
touched, fully inside or fully outside
the selection drag/drop rectangle become selected.
Today it is something between touching and fully inside.
Have you tried
Select with marquee moving from left to right -> select only within marquee
Select with marquee moving from right to left ->select all objects touching marquee
Is that what you mean?
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Thank you! This works fine.
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