Kicad 10.0 global settings

[PartialDischarge]

There is something about the settings in Kicad that is really bothering me.
In PCB Editor every time I open it, the minimum text height constraint is set to 0.8 ( I use 0.6 normally) and the footprint text is disabled. So I have to change this every time I open it for each previously made board, doesn't save as a global setting.

So my question is, there must be a config file somewhere that I could edit and change this forever?

[Doctorandus_P]

I guess it works if you create a project template, and then start a new project from that template.

If you start a new project in KiCad V10, you always have to select a template, even if it's the "default". (In earlier KiCad versions the templates were a bit hidden). In KiCad a template is just a project, with all it's properties (schematic, pcb, custom rules, settings, etc) and then saved in the template directory, and some additonal data added (Icon, description). For more info about templates see the manual:

https://docs.kicad.org/10.0/en/kicad/kicad.html#project-templates

[PartialDischarge]

ok, but my main issue is with the 100 boards I have already designed with Kicad 6 and these 'undesirable' settings will apply to all of the once I open any of them
So my focus now is in finding where the files that define this behavior are...

[Doctorandus_P]

I set this: PCB Editor / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / constraints / Silk / Minimum text height to "0.6453" in a random project, saved it, and then did a grep on the project directory for that number.

Grep shows there is now a "min_text_height": 0.6453, in the [Project].kicad_pro file on line 154.

Just like all other KiCad files, the project file is in a human readable ascii format. Therefore you can edit them in a text editor, use a script that does bulk modifications in a lot of files, etc.

Some Programming IDE's have built in functions to search for and replace text in a whole directory tree. (Monodevelop had that function, R.I.P).

But please be a bit careful when you are doing this. Editing by humans or external scripts is not a main goal of KiCad, and KiCad does not do much syntax checking, so a forgotten bracket or comma confuses KiCad and is hard to fix afterward.

[PartialDischarge]

Yes the constraints are in the kicad_pro files. So I guess I can make (or chatgpt ) a shell recursive script to search these project files and insert this line. Better than nothing....

[Doctorandus_P]

KiCad also has a Import Settings from Another Board..., but that still requires that you open all those other projects one by one to import them. There is no "bulk push to other projects".

[PartialDischarge]

How about the Symbol Fields Table in Schematics? Do I also have to change the default every time I need to edit a schematic? Part number is not shown by default and the arrangement does not fit my needs

EDIT. I understand the project templates based workflow, but there is no excuse to NOT having a default and global adjustable template. This is like having to tweak Word or Excel every time one opens a file.

[Doctorandus_P]

... but there is no excuse to NOT having a default and global adjustable template.

In KiCad V10, you always start a new project from a template. But once a project has been instantiated, a lot of the properties become a part of the project. This is just common sense. You do not want all the same design rules, etc. to be the same for all projects. Also for things like the "default silkscreen text size" it does not make much sense to keep this always the same. Sometimes you create a simple PCB and you want nice big fat letters, another time you're creating a dense 10 layer PCB and you have very little space to put some texts.

And KiCad does have a whole lot of settings which are always global. Those are stored in the configuration directory.

KiCad's way of using human editable files gives you the ability to make "weird" changes to many projects relatively easily.

[JPortici]

This is like having to tweak Word or Excel every time one opens a file.

Hey, that's exactly how libreoffice calc works! 

[bson]

Oh, templates are handy!  I have a dummy project I used to import design rules from, for JLCPCB 4/6/8 layer boards - at https://git.rockgarden.net/bson/kicad-jlcpcb
I should turn this into a template, add my PartDB connector URL, etc.