CERN's contribution to KiCAD

[nickoe]

I don't see your complaint. Is it that the official releases lag the development releases in features? Because duh. This stuff is brand spanking new and not tested in the wild. It's not suitable for general release yet. If you don't want to build the development version yourself, either stop complaining and wait for an official release to come or find some kind soul who has spared you the task of setting up a working build environment and download a binary.

Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.

It is not quite true that the Developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

You are correct -- remember that my post was from May of last year. I've been following the developer mailing list (and testing things when I can), and they've declared a feature freeze with the goal of a stable release on all supported platforms ASAP.

Yes, I know the initial thread is old. But I don't rember seeing your nick on the bug tracker (you could ofc be using something else), please help on there if you are testing anyways, and please report bugs (if not already in the tracker).

[timofonic]

I don't see your complaint. Is it that the official releases lag the development releases in features? Because duh. This stuff is brand spanking new and not tested in the wild. It's not suitable for general release yet. If you don't want to build the development version yourself, either stop complaining and wait for an official release to come or find some kind soul who has spared you the task of setting up a working build environment and download a binary.

Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.

It is not quite true that the Developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

You are correct -- remember that my post was from May of last year. I've been following the developer mailing list (and testing things when I can), and they've declared a feature freeze with the goal of a stable release on all supported platforms ASAP.

Yes, I know the initial thread is old. But I don't rember seeing your nick on the bug tracker (you could ofc be using something else), please help on there if you are testing anyways, and please report bugs (if not already in the tracker).

Are there plans for a blog with development and projects news?

[nickoe]

I don't see your complaint. Is it that the official releases lag the development releases in features? Because duh. This stuff is brand spanking new and not tested in the wild. It's not suitable for general release yet. If you don't want to build the development version yourself, either stop complaining and wait for an official release to come or find some kind soul who has spared you the task of setting up a working build environment and download a binary.

Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.

It is not quite true that the Developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

You are correct -- remember that my post was from May of last year. I've been following the developer mailing list (and testing things when I can), and they've declared a feature freeze with the goal of a stable release on all supported platforms ASAP.

Yes, I know the initial thread is old. But I don't rember seeing your nick on the bug tracker (you could ofc be using something else), please help on there if you are testing anyways, and please report bugs (if not already in the tracker).

Are there plans for a blog with development and projects news?

Sort of and sort of not.

There has been some discussion about the subject in https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg17387.html

Nothing has been decieded yet as such, it is an open ended discussion, we just need people to do it. But Mark Roszko said:

> I was thinking of volunteering to do something like this as I
> primarily do web development outside my usual work of embedded
> systems. I think it would be easy to make a very pretty "modern" kicad
> home page for non developers. I would love to have kicad be more
> inviting for non devs as the website write now is quite unwelcoming
> for such users.

We are thinking about using a static site generator on github or similar. Then people can contribute easily via pull requests and the changes can be reviewed. By doing this, it should also be easier to compose a blog/news section collecting announcements and other things.

I myself was looking at trying pelican, because it has support for asciidoc, which is used for the new documentation, such that we can embed the documentation in the same streamlined site

[timofonic]

I don't see your complaint. Is it that the official releases lag the development releases in features? Because duh. This stuff is brand spanking new and not tested in the wild. It's not suitable for general release yet. If you don't want to build the development version yourself, either stop complaining and wait for an official release to come or find some kind soul who has spared you the task of setting up a working build environment and download a binary.

Just a point - the Kicad developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

There is a "stable" development branch in their Launchpad repository but it has not been updated since January.

It is not quite true that the Developers don't believe in "official" or "stable" releases.

You are correct -- remember that my post was from May of last year. I've been following the developer mailing list (and testing things when I can), and they've declared a feature freeze with the goal of a stable release on all supported platforms ASAP.

Yes, I know the initial thread is old. But I don't rember seeing your nick on the bug tracker (you could ofc be using something else), please help on there if you are testing anyways, and please report bugs (if not already in the tracker).

Are there plans for a blog with development and projects news?

Sort of and sort of not.

There has been some discussion about the subject in https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg17387.html

Nothing has been decieded yet as such, it is an open ended discussion, we just need people to do it. But Mark Roszko said:

I was thinking of volunteering to do something like this as I primarily do web development outside my usual work of embedded systems. I think it would be easy to make a very pretty "modern" kicad home page for non developers. I would love to have kicad be more inviting for non devs as the website write now is quite unwelcoming for such users.

We are thinking about using a static site generator on github or similar. Then people can contribute easily via pull requests and the changes can be reviewed. By doing this, it should also be easier to compose a blog/news section collecting announcements and other things.

I myself was looking at trying pelican, because it has support for asciidoc, which is used for the new documentation, such that we can embed the documentation in the same streamlined site

Are there a possibility to organize a massive "Call for volunteers" marketing in all possible major electronics websites? I think most of them will agree if not are too tied to sponsor interests. The campaign can be difficult to manage and would require the help from some organizations. I know this is a pipe dream, but I would love it to happen.

What would EEVblog's Dave think about it?

Regards.

[nickoe]

Are there a possibility to organize a massive "Call for volunteers" marketing in all possible major electronics websites? I think most of them will agree if not are too tied to sponsor interests. The campaign can be difficult to manage and would require the help from some organizations. I know this is a pipe dream, but I would love it to happen.

What would EEVblog's Dave think about it?

Regards.

Ohh well, open source projects are always in need of usefull hands. I think that such an elaborate plan can be worked on in the meantime, but I also think that it should not initiate before the so called "release". Maybe. The reasoning is that we need focus on making that release happen, such that we have something to present to people. If lucky we could move away from the infamous bazaar VCS, which supposedly should motivate more people to contribute.

When that is said, please don't hold back.

[jsquaredz]

Good video from the KiCAD project leader showing the past, present, and future of KiCAD.  Volume is low, but in VLC I can boost to 200% to make it ok.

Its a few months old, but has a lot of good info.

http://video.fosdem.org/2015/devroom-electronic_design_automation/kicad.mp4

[Mechatrommer]

http://kicad.nosoftware.cz/.

this link no longer works... is this the new site to download the lastest source code?
https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror
is it frequently updated?

[Thor-Arne]

The new site for recent builds is www2.futureware.at/~nickoe/.

[timofonic]

http://kicad.nosoftware.cz/.

this link no longer works... is this the new site to download the lastest source code?
https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror
is it frequently updated?

Usually yes. It's a mirror from...

https://launchpad.net/kicad

They were saying about switching to Git, not sure if Github. Github is zillion times better than the messy launchpad and bzr, but they lack some services such as mailing lists.

Anyone knows the upcoming news?

Im unable to get something from commit logs, I have no.clue about programming too...

[Thor-Arne]

Users mailing list:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-users/

Developers mailing list:
http://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers

I don't read those though, I just check the download page for new downloads.

[ludzinc]

Yet no decent copy / paste.   

Looks like they are workign on the 'cool stuff' not he actual 'make it easy to use stuff' because that's hard and boring...

[Absolut-Lagom]

Yep.

Exactly this.

If you are hoping for UI improvements you can more or less forget it. The devs are only interested in 'cool' features.

The brain-dead user interface could be improved enormously with (relative to SPICE & push & shove) little effort. But what do we get....

Yes I know it's open source bla bla change it yourself bla bla.

Open Source != Closed To Criticism

[Kalvin]

I see that as a cool proof of concept, despite of its obvious shortcomings in the UI. It is obvious to me that the designers were not concentrated into the UI ergonomics and user experience, instead they were concentrating on the solving problem using quick & dirty prototyping in order to get their idea of the SPICE integration working.

[Macbeth]

I imagine there are so many KiCad stalwarts who have mastered all the hotkeys and have the bizarre cut'n'paste inconsistencies wired into their lizard brains that they think its a case of "if it 'aint broke don't fix it!"

So if someone even dares fix it so it works like Windows it will be deemed heresy and never accepted.

[Rerouter]

In my head the cut / paste thing could be resolved by making the rectangle selection static, then using a hotkey to move or rotate or copy, to those that have learned the hotkeys it will line up with how they treat individual components.

My understanding of software is sadly only C, so i guess i will have to throw some dollars there way, would love to see layout dependent calculations on the PCB side, e.g. import parasitics, you know the trace width, distance to ground plane, plating thickness, can specify the board material, etc, so a crude approximation could be brought in to compare one layout to another, e.g. add the RLC of a via, add the ground plane capacitance of a trace, I mention this because those parameters can be retreived using already understood math,

[filssavi]

Yet no decent copy / paste.   

Looks like they are workign on the 'cool stuff' not he actual 'make it easy to use stuff' because that's hard and boring...

I'd say all the contary instead, this has been a sort of one off feature introduced, in the V5 release that will be otherwise a lot of work under the hood to get the code in a state that can support things  like copy and paste work...

if you go read the developer mailing list  you'll notice that there is in the working a massive (and i mean really big) refactor of the eeschema codebase, to bring it up to standard, still in the 4 release (that has been pushed out when the work on the pcb editor (under the hood) has mostly been finished; AFAIK the codebase was plagued by problems like a very deep interlinking between GUI and businnes logic, few God-like objects that did really to many things and so on, obviously if the codebase is in such a poor state the best thing is to spend some time (a year or more if necessary) to get it in a state where it is workable with and then add features/improve usability, a very similar approch has been followed by the libreoffice community right after the openoffice-oracle debacle, they took their time, done the hard work (which is on the back end, non user facing code) and then moved on.

DISCLAIMER: I am not speaking in any way shape or form on behalf of the kicad team, I haven't contributed a single line of code (Lack of time and real C++ coding skills) even if the will is there, I just follow the developement process eagerly 

[technotronix]

Just thought I'd share this link to information on CERN's contribution to the development of KiCAD

http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki

Not much there yet but but there a BIG plans (subject to donations-Page for donations to be added later)

http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki/WorkPackages

I hope it is of some interest.

David.

Great!
This is unexpected.
Thanks for updating us.