I have been writing a HowTo/FAQ which should help with environment variables. It’s mostly meant for the possibly soon coming KICAD_CONFIG_HOME feature but includes the library paths, too. Here is a preview: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rq8i2Ay7qpGpffaj-AQmE-Xp88ikHhgyt0Ygpi8717o/edit?usp=sharing
I want feedback but please not in this thread.
New information about v5 status, beginning with this dev mailing list message: https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg35785.html
Wonderful news! I’m starting to feel like a kid when only a week away from Christmas (or, insert your favorite holiday) but I think you get my point 
Hi there,
Yes I thing I open the box with my gift with ver 5.
I started learning kicad v4 three months ago and after the announcement of V5 in FOSCEM 2018 I decided to go for v5 . This is RC2 stable release (windows nightly build May 13).
Things are pretty cool now with 3D and libraries and many more.
The thing is that in pcbnew there is only one view (no opengl , default ,…). That is good but…
Freeroute is working, interactive route is working but no internal autoroute like the previews version.
Does anybody has more info on how auto routing or interactive routing in 5?
(any docs highly appreciated)
Thanks
First of all, rc2 has not yet been released.
And even if it is released it is not a stable release.
The rc series releases are so called release candidates. They are development builds. What sets them apart from nightly is that there is exactly one commit tagged as rc1 (or rc2, …)
The rc series can be seen as milestone markers. (Bug reports are connected to them.) So every rc tag has a set of bugs connected to it that must be fixed before the tag is set.
Sadly there is no way to easily install rc1. Maybe rc2 will get a more official release that will allow users to run that particular release more easily.
What you really run is the nightly build from sometime after the rc1 tag has been added to the source repo. What sets nightly builds right now apart from nightlies from a year ago is that kicad is in feature freeze for quite some time now.
If i remember the announcement correctly, RC2 will be the string freeze release (after that no graphical interface changes will be allowed. This will allow the guys from the documentation team to update their docu)
Rene_Poschl1d thanks for your replay.
One thing that absolutely understood from your info is that before version finishes RCXX cycle developers are unable to write a manual. Hopefully this will happen as soon as possible.
The part I misunderstood is that my nightly build now says “5.0.0-rc2-dev-756-gxxxxxxx) release build” . That is May 18.
If understand correctly this is not the official RC2 but just unofficial rc2 given to nightly build ? and what this release build stands for.?
Anyway looks that it it only a litle time until we have the thing oficialy out and developers start writing or finishing the manual
Meanwhile I am working with V5 and hoping my system will not crash. I am making small boards at this time.
As far as I sow from another post the old “OPEN GL” mode is done now with Modern toolset accelerated -F11 and that is working fine (from Preferences) .
My method of working is to follow V4 manual see what is applicable in V5 and read everything I see posted here (or elsewhere) about V5.
Any post from a guy that discovers something will be grate help at this moment of “darkens” concerning designing with kicad V5
Anyway I am not coming back to V4. I do not have the time to learn things that in some days or weeks will be PAST.
I am always looking forward for good news…
Creating a version number system is difficult when there’s a version control system with small commits. The version numbers are based on some tag plus the git commit. KiCad developers chose the system where there is the next planned version number (in this case 5.0.0 rc2 where rc2 means a release candidate version before 5.0.0), then “dev” which here means it’s a development version leading to the beforementioned version, then some release number (I don’t know what it means TBH), then gxxxxx means the specific unambiguous git commit.
Maybe it would have been better to choose another system, for example “previous_released_version+gxxxxx” where “+” would have meant, well, previous_released_version plus some git commits. It would have been less ambiguous in my opinion. At least it wouldn’t have lead people to hastily interpret it meaning they have the 5.0.0rc2 version at hand which actually hasn’t been released yet.
I think it is number of commits since previous tag, so should be number of commits since 5.0.0-rc1 in this case.
It looks complicated but one thing is for sure. I do not have RC2 in my hand now and I have to leave with it waiting and hoping for the official release.
Than you guys for helping me on this
Wayne expects KiCad to be ready for the version 5 stable release in 3 to 4 weeks
See: https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg35841.html
Lets see how well his prediction is this time around
If don’t remember if the version number system was changed or is this due to Wayne forgetting the push the tag before changing the version number code, but the latest version number (today’s nightly build on Windows) is 5.0.0-rc2-37-ga8db21319, and rc2 has been tagged. So, maybe we don’t have as confusing version numbers as I thought.
As for other news, milestone rc3 has been added for development purposes, but it’s still unclear whether rc3 will be tagged later or if it will be directly 5.0.0. Anyways, the situation looks good, but until now it always has been longer than expected… I’m still not as pessimistic as bobc was above, but version 5 certainly wasn’t ready for quarter 1 of 2018.
Last prediction I heard V5 was for: “the end of April”.
4 to 5 weeks from now is about 10 months earlier than the previous prediction 
There is a call for translations
I think they are close to release, but they need to translate to each supported language first.
There are no new news from the developers. Here’s the related bug list: https://launchpad.net/kicad/+milestone/5.0.0-rc3. There are no critical bugs which are actually planned to be fixed for the next tag. Until now new critical bugs (mostly crashes) have emerged and and have then been fixed all the time. That seems to be the only reason why 5.0 hasn’t been released.
In my opinion it would be better if you all would take the nightly builds and start using them. That way the looming crashes and data losses would be found and fixed faster. Well, this opinion needs quite many smileys… 
But seriously, I anticipate seeing a rush of many new bug reports after 5.0 has been released. It would be better to catch them before the release, but if it’s not released, people won’t use it. Catch 22.
Who “they”? It’s we!
Wayne just posted to the dev mailing list. We can be cautiously optimistic. I’m not yet ready to believe bobc’s prediction, but we’ll see…
Some ancient but rare bugs have been fixed since RC2. I find V5 is really stable and user friendly compared with V4 now.
Latest news from the developers mailing list… https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg36295.html
The final may come out at the end of this month, about one week from now.
It seems we are really getting close. Wayne just announced that rc3 will be tagged shortly. If no major bug is found the release might come sometime in the week between 9th and 15th of June.
More details see: https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg36374.html
Thanx for the update. And, have a good trip. (I hope it is for pleasure, or if it is for work you can work some tourist time into your schedule.)
Hmm, it’s already 30th June here Maybe July?