For the issues raised, It appears people have started filling out bug reports for them.
e.g. https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1788312
With Kicad most of the development is reactionary based, If a lot of users are requesting that feature or function on that bug tracker, and its well explained to the devs, It gets implemented faster.
For the issues raised, It appears people have started filling out bug reports for them.
e.g. https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1788312
With Kicad most of the development is reactionary based, If a lot of users are requesting that feature or function on that bug tracker, and its well explained to the devs, It gets implemented faster.
The keyboard hotkeys can be changed, however I agree the mouse functions should be changeable as well, Go to the tracker and select where it says "does this effect you too"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1778437
Changing the program to suit other programs out of the box I would say No, I have spent years using this program, like you have spent years learning yours, You leave the defaults alone, A better suggestion would be a drop down box at the top of the hotkeys option dialog to select between some common ones, Right now you can import and export the .hotkeys file, with mouse functions moved into the same hotkeys file Its not a stretch to have it set up to behave like your program instead a few minutes out of the box.
Now serious talk: what issues do you actually have, Like Daves issues he raised, I have been going over the bug listing and starting to make them more prominent, but From someone who already uses kicad it can be hard to compare to other tools I do not yet use.
Well that was less than I expected...
What I meant is be specific, You see issues where my learned behaviors just look past, What parts of the UI are problematic? vs someones literal first try, not being familiar with it, If i was to fire up Eagle, or Altium, My first try would not fair much better.
Every thing that has a Hotkey has a button, Personally I don't use the hotkeys, Its just easier on chat to say "X for trace" than "the green squiggly line button on the right hand toolbar"
The bug listing is what I point to, As being an open source project, that is where people go look to find things that need fixing, modifications, or addition of wishlist features, you might notice the mouse options in hotkey link in my last post was a "wishlist" item, Its not something that breaks the use of the program, e.g. a bug, but something that people want added. This is how these projects are focused,
What I was trying to convey is your telling someone who has used it for years, and not the other programs, that things are not in the right place, I don't know what your right places are..
If you're begging for Apple-esque UI design in an open source program you're barking up the wrong tree. Look at *any* open source software, none of it has an insanely great UI because they don't have staffers to devote to UI/UX design, and that's just something you have to deal with. When it comes to open source, I'd take KiCAD over geda any day...
There's no point trying to convince anyone to switch from a professional grade PCB solution. That's absolutely not the purpose of the product. Obviously a product that costs thousands of dollars is going to be more well-made than an open source community-developed program, that's just common sense.
If it isn't for you, it isn't for you. If you're a hobbyist or a small business who doesn't want to shell out tons of money for PCB software, then KiCAD is perfect. If not, then keep on keeping on.
If you're begging for Apple-esque UI design in an open source program you're barking up the wrong tree. Look at *any* open source software, none of it has an insanely great UI because they don't have staffers to devote to UI/UX design, and that's just something you have to deal with. When it comes to open source, I'd take KiCAD over geda any day...
There's no point trying to convince anyone to switch from a professional grade PCB solution. That's absolutely not the purpose of the product. Obviously a product that costs thousands of dollars is going to be more well-made than an open source community-developed program, that's just common sense.
If it isn't for you, it isn't for you. If you're a hobbyist or a small business who doesn't want to shell out tons of money for PCB software, then KiCAD is perfect. If not, then keep on keeping on.I am sorry, but that is just complete BS.
It all has to do with setting the right priorities and focus.
Instead of focussing months on fancy auto router, simulator and 3D graphics, they could spend their time in making a product work.
The reason why I am getting sometimes a bit upset about it, is that it's just very frustrating, like talking to a big wall.
Programs like KiCad have plenty of potential, could be easily better than the biggest competitors.
But with the wrong focus it will always be just an overly complicated prototype hobbyist program that seems to be constantly defended by a big army of fanboys.
I don;t seem what's wrong with some feedback?
Makes you almost wonder that people don't want it to be great?
As I clearly mentioned before (people seem to have skipped it).
Basic scepticism is normal, but after a while it's more than that
Closing your ears and eyes for people (like Dave) with years of experience and knowledge is not only incredibly stupid, many find it also pretty disrespectful after a while and lose interest.
It would credit the KiCad developers and the community around it a lot more to open up their minds, instead of defending their baby all the time.
A better response would be' "Oh thanks for the suggestions, there seem to be actually some truth in it".
But hey, what do I know, as if I never worked with PCBs before and tried KiCad several times in professional environments with different people.
There's still the fact that the product does work, even though you're insisting that it's somehow unusable. Like I said, I've used it to create many manufactured circuit boards and it works fine for me. There's a point that it isn't even "constructive criticism" and just becomes useless whining. Again, these are volunteers, an autorouter or simulator might be something that people actually need, and if the rest of the product works, then great. They don't have the resources to devote to a full UI overhaul or something. That's just the nature of open source, which you're failing to understand.
If you feel like you're "talking to a big wall" then maybe you need to step back and realize that KiCAD just isn't for you. If you have a problem with the community, then it's probably best to leave it
Volunteers or not, with great focus and good priorities unpaid people can do sometimes even better.
Volunteers or not, with great focus and good priorities unpaid people can do sometimes even better.None the less, this is difficult extremely difficult with something as complex as a complete EDA cad package. You also have developers who like to see things work their way, or even thing they tie to for example, like while routing, pressing the shift or control key to alter how a trace snaps to grid, or the closest endpoint which wasn't well documented in Protel 98, yet was still hidden in there and very useful, I'm sure KiCAD has a lot of little keys and tricks to do exactly what Dave wanted while editing with it, but, he was just playing around for the second time without reading any manual.
I'm sure KiCAD get may requests for such features or changes, yet, some of which are requests in opposite directions. It's like saying do you want a Altium emulator? KiCAD looks more than good enough for many engineers and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to make their own PCBs, or even semi professionals who don't need some specific critical engineering industry tool.
Well that was less than I expected...
What I meant is be specific, You see issues where my learned behaviors just look past, What parts of the UI are problematic? vs someones literal first try, not being familiar with it, If i was to fire up Eagle, or Altium, My first try would not fair much better.
Every thing that has a Hotkey has a button, Personally I don't use the hotkeys, Its just easier on chat to say "X for trace" than "the green squiggly line button on the right hand toolbar"
The bug listing is what I point to, As being an open source project, that is where people go look to find things that need fixing, modifications, or addition of wishlist features, you might notice the mouse options in hotkey link in my last post was a "wishlist" item, Its not something that breaks the use of the program, e.g. a bug, but something that people want added. This is how these projects are focused,
The point about where to click to edit the fill area was a huge "mmhm" moment for me; as a KiCAD user, this has absolutely infuriated me every time I have to adjust fill areas that I can't simply right click an "empty" section where there is just the fill area and get a pop-up with the fill properties. I've only used up to KiCAD 4, so perhaps this is fixed in KiCAD 5. Utterly stupid that you need to right click the fill boarder to edit properties.
This issue was reported by me about half a year ago : https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1753153