KiCAD 7.0.0 released.

[johnboxall]

See https://www.kicad.org/blog/2023/02/Version-7.0.0-Released/

[ataradov]

Linux version does not seem to be fully released yet. PPA still says that it is not ready.

[dobsonr741]

 Orthogonal dragging -   

[themadhippy]

well that woz fun,followed the instruction to install from the terminal in ubuntu and ended up with another install of 6

[ataradov]

Well, they clearly have not updated instructions yet. PPA has 6.0 in the name, this should have been a clue.

V7 PPA would be https://launchpad.net/~kicad/+archive/ubuntu/kicad-7.0-releases, but it is empty at the moment.

[ppTRN]

Orthogonal dragging -   

It will save me soo many tears! I always make a mess with the grid widouth it

[JohanH]

Linux version does not seem to be fully released yet. PPA still says that it is not ready.

It's complicated. Technically it was released on Saturday when they put the release tag in the source repository on gitlab. How different downstream distributions do their packaging is another matter. The release message seems to be announced when they have verified packages of most common platforms, i.e. the ones they provide themselves (Windows, Mac) and some of the most common distributions that they cooperate with. That's fine.

For instance Fedora 37 (that I use) will not update to KiCAD 7 in their repositories. Next version of Fedora will get KiCAD 7. But you can install it as a flatpak in any version.

[ataradov]

For instance Fedora 37 (that I use) will not update to KiCAD 7 in their repositories. Next version of Fedora will get KiCAD 7. But you can install it as a flatpak in any version.

It is not going to get into the official release for ages, but that PPA repo is maintained by the KiCAD team and for 6.x branch it was updating instantly on each minor release. Not sure why 7.0 PPA did not update and official instruction to install "7.0" on Ubuntu lead to instructions that install 6.x.

[berke]

The "pack and move footprint" seems really neat.  I'm sick of having to follow the schematic in another window and using the "T" command to move related components one by one.

[ppTRN]

This is my first time upgrading Kicad to a newer version. Should I just install it and the folders will "figure it out", or shoud I backup the progect and library folder, and then paste them on the new folder created with the new intstall?

[JohanH]

It is not going to get into the official release for ages, but that PPA repo is maintained by the KiCAD team and for 6.x branch it was updating instantly on each minor release. Not sure why 7.0 PPA did not update and official instruction to install "7.0" on Ubuntu lead to instructions that install 6.x.

Reportedly there have been issues with library versions in various distributions.

Flatpak is a good solution when upstream doesn't want to deal with every possible Linux distribution out there.

[JohanH]

This is my first time upgrading Kicad to a newer version. Should I just install it and the folders will "figure it out", or shoud I backup the progect and library folder, and then paste them on the new folder created with the new intstall?

It's not a bad idea to backup your projects and name them ..._v6. Or just backup with time stamp.

In v7 you will be asked to import settings/library paths from v6. Projects will be converted to v7 format when you save them. Then they can't be opened with older versions any more.

[ppTRN]

This is my first time upgrading Kicad to a newer version. Should I just install it and the folders will "figure it out", or shoud I backup the progect and library folder, and then paste them on the new folder created with the new intstall?

It's not a bad idea to backup your projects and name them

I surely will. Thank you

[eugene]

Linux version does not seem to be fully released yet. PPA still says that it is not ready.

I just installed V7 to Ubuntu from the PPA. Note that it's necessary to modify the installation instructions at kicad.org:

replace

Code: [Select]

ppa:kicad/kicad-6.0-releases
with

Code: [Select]

ppa:kicad/kicad-7.0-releases
The upgrade became available on PPA just with the last couple of hours. I expect that someone will get around to fixing the installation instructions before too long. 

[ataradov]

The upgrade became available on PPA just with the last couple of hours. I expect that someone will get around to fixing the installation instructions before too long. 

Yeah, I've seen that the files were added to the PPA. Will try it a bit later.

It is strange that the same PPA distributes its own cmake for some reason.

Seems to work fine on the quick test. The only observed issue is that in Linux Mint menu items have disappeared. Not a huge deal.

[themadhippy]

in Linux Mint menu items have disappeared

yea caught me out in ubuntu.However whatever i try i cant seem to get the bugger to appear on the menu or even a desktop launcher,but it works fine from the terminal.

[ataradov]

yea caught me out in ubuntu.However whatever i try i cant seem to get the bugger to appear on the menu or even a desktop launcher,but it works fine from the terminal.

I manually extracted *.desktop files from the deb file and it works. The files on disk were empty. Not sure what is going on, but I'm sure it is not intentional and would be fixed in future releases.

[themadhippy]

Temporary fixed by copying an existing top panel short cut and editing it They certainly made simple things harder in newer versions of ubuntu,im sure you used to be able to right click the desk top and there was an "add launcher" option

[SiliconWizard]

As I mentioned earlier, I have managed to build KiCad 6 for Windows 7 for a while now and a couple users here have shown interest and have tested it. I personally use it on a daily basis.

So of course I did try building v7 for Windows 7. Required only a minor change compared to v6. So, I built it, but I have an issue. Everything runs except the schematic editor, due to a dependance on Win 8+ functions from the Windows API. From what I've checked, KiCad code base doesn't directly use any such functions except for CreateFile2(), which has a conditional compilation anyway, so it's not a problem. But the other dependencies are due to MSYS2 (which I've been using to build KiCad on Windows) not supporting Win 7 anymore now - so their libraries are not made to be compatible with Win 7 anymore. It's pretty recent (although MSYS2 have been warning us for a few months, but they made the switch like a week ago.)

Don't know yet if I'll be able to circumvent that without having to go through hoops. It's probably going to bite for building other software than KiCad on MSYS2 too.

That had to happen. :'(

[djsb]

Nightly builds are now tagged as V7.99
Looking forward to new features in V8 particularly improvements to simulation.

[eugene]

in Linux Mint menu items have disappeared

yea caught me out in ubuntu.However whatever i try i cant seem to get the bugger to appear on the menu or even a desktop launcher,but it works fine from the terminal.

Not sure why Ubuntu doesn't ship with a utility to edit the applications menu. Actually, it doesn't ship with an applications menu at all, it needs to be added with tweaks! Anyway, alacarte works well to edit the menu, change icons, etc...

(I'm still running 20.04. When I eventually upgrade I'm going back to Mint, but that's another discussion.)

[stryker]

I only upgraded to 6 recently.  But with 7 including orthoganal dragging, text boxes and reversed silkscreen text that I am so pleased to see.  This is a deluge of good news!

[David Aurora]

I feel like I only just moved to 6, but this looks worth a quick jump.

One question though- can someone point me to the most recent, best practices for library management? I feel like my libraries have always been a mess in Kicad and I don't know how much is from version changes and how much is from doing it the wrong way. The move to 7 feels like the right time for me to do things whatever the proper way is in terms of where I put files and folders going forward.

[MT]

V7.0.0 on Win10 ,8GB machine, schematics randomly locks up, pcb works fine.

[dobsonr741]

One question though- can someone point me to the most recent, best practices for library management?

Ditto. Yesterday I opened up a downloaded schematics from someone else, copied a block from the schematics, opened my project and pasted it. The symbol, not in the standard library, came over just fine. I have no idea what the consequences will be.