Kicad 9.0.0 RC announced

[bitwelder]

Twitted today by @kicad_pcb:

The KiCad project is excited to announce the first release candidate for the next major version is available for testing. Version 9.0.0 is expected to be released by 01/31/25.

New features can be found here https://forum.kicad.info/t/post-v8-new-features-and-development-news/48614

 Packages are available https://kicad.org/download/

(https://x.com/kicad_pcb/status/1870871446597308559)

[nctnico]

I tried to click on the various links but none bring me to a list with new features...

[janoc]

Maybe try to scroll down the announcement post? The individual features are listed right there, including screenshots & even videos where relevant (such as multiple track dragging - nice!) 

[tooki]

I tried to click on the various links but none bring me to a list with new features...

Whatever do you mean?!? That’s exactly what the first link does.

[rteodor]

I tried to click on the various links but none bring me to a list with new features...

Whatever do you mean?!? That’s exactly what the first link does.

Its one of these shody JS dependent webpages with lazy content loading (I suspect). Without JS there is no scrollbar and no ability to scroll. Only the content of the top viewframe is rendered and that is all.

[tooki]

Well, as much as I detest a lot of modern web design, if one chooses to disable JS entirely or severely undermine it with aggressive blockers, one cannot be surprised if sites sometimes break. Then one has to try with JS enabled or unblocked and see if it works.

(I know from experience because I do run aggressive blockers and sometimes need to turn them off for a site to work.)

[Hawaka]

IMO the addition of creepage DRC rule is one of the biggest new features. If properly implemented this is almost a game changer.

[PlainName]

Well, as much as I detest a lot of modern web design ...

Why would a window on my machine need to run JS just to show a scrollbar and page the window up and down? It's ridiculous, and IMO just shows the kind of mindset that thinks "Works great for me, everyone else better use the same apps I do in the same way I do." Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

[Monkeh]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

[tooki]

Well, as much as I detest a lot of modern web design ...

Why would a window on my machine need to run JS just to show a scrollbar and page the window up and down? It's ridiculous, and IMO just shows the kind of mindset that thinks "Works great for me, everyone else better use the same apps I do in the same way I do." Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

It is highly unlikely they developed their website themselves! It is almost certainly some off-the-shelf software package running some off-the-shelf skin.

I completely agree that we shouldn’t need JavaScript for basic web functions (nor for many advanced ones, frankly). But the fact is that as users of the modern web, we do need it, because without it, tons of sites break.

But my point is simply that if one chooses to disable one of the core technologies of the modern web, then many sites will break, and that by choosing to disable it, one forfeits the right to complain that the web page doesn’t work.

[PlainName]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

The website is the face of the project. When we whine about the RS or Farnell search parameters (or lack, thereof) we don't say, "Oh, that's just the web monkey and RS/Farnell have no control over them". No, we say that RS/Farnell themselves are responsible and crap.

[PlainName]

But my point is simply that if one chooses to disable one of the core technologies of the modern web, then many sites will break

Yes, accepted. I perhaps misread your comment as not so much justification but acceptance.

[Thor-Arne]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

Well, they did code it from scratch, I was a part of the devs for the original web page.
What's going on with the kicad.info page I don't know, it's a forum, and the owner is hidden.

Somewhere down the line they changed the way it's hosted, before it was a simple web provider, now it seems they are hosting it on a kubernetes service.
I suppose that is to be expected when the site grows.

[wilfred]

Couldn't they at least have put the NEW info at the top of the scrollable list? Who wants to scroll past old info you already read? I'm not going to excuse that. I don't really care about other things.

[Doctorandus_P]

IMO the addition of creepage DRC rule is one of the biggest new features. If properly implemented this is almost a game changer.

Different peoples have different wishes.

The provided New Features and Development News link has 69 posts, and nearly every one announces a new feature. With KiCad's quite steady release cycle (Beginning of each year, before FOSDEM) that is an average of more then one feature each week. And it's been going that way for a few years now. Every mayor KiCad release has it's own  New Features and Development News thread on the forum. Once the new mayor version is released, the biggest and most important features are also announced on the official KiCad website.

[PlainName]

Couldn't they at least have put the NEW info at the top of the scrollable list? Who wants to scroll past old info you already read? I'm not going to excuse that. I don't really care about other things.

 

Superficially I'd agree with you, but I am so used to reading in order that I refuse to use the  (online) newspaper 'live' page where they put the latest at the top. Main reason is I don't have the page open and watching it all the time, so when I visit my last read will be somewhere halfway down and impossible to find quickly. I don't want to read the latest first because then I'll skip the stuff that would otherwise have been interesting but I now can't find and has been made obsolete by the top of the page.

And also it's a right drag to read some bit, scrolling down as you go, and then have to scroll up an indeterminate amount to get to the start of the next bit. And if the page is being updated in background the bit you're trying to read is being pushed down as you read it...

No, it is serial text. Treat it as such.

[BBBbbb]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

The website is the face of the project. When we whine about the RS or Farnell search parameters (or lack, thereof) we don't say, "Oh, that's just the web monkey and RS/Farnell have no control over them". No, we say that RS/Farnell themselves are responsible and crap.

Website of RS or Farnell is the product, they are literally web shops.

KiCad is a free SW product that has a website.

Of course I'm not going to hold them to the same standard.
And I'm not even sure if the discussion is about kicad.org, or forum.kicad.info. If later, your comment makes even less sense.

[janoc]

Christ, people. Are you really complaining about  the forum page that the free software project is using as a way to collaborate among developers to generate the release notes for the release sometime in the future while that release is still in development?

Seriously?

For your information, those are not the actual release notes. Those are posted here, once the release is out (i.e. not for RCs and such):

https://www.kicad.org/blog/categories/Release-Notes/

[PlainName]

Complaining about a web page. Just happens to be Kicad because that's where the link went, and doing it here because this is where it was posted, but I would complain about it whoever and whatever it was for.

[tooki]

But my point is simply that if one chooses to disable one of the core technologies of the modern web, then many sites will break

Yes, accepted. I perhaps misread your comment as not so much justification but acceptance.

Well, it is about acceptance. Or maybe not so much “acceptance” as “resignation”. I can hate modern web design as much as I want (which is a lot), but if I want to use the web today, then I have to use the modern web and its tools. It is what it is.

[tooki]

Couldn't they at least have put the NEW info at the top of the scrollable list? Who wants to scroll past old info you already read? I'm not going to excuse that. I don't really care about other things.

At least it has a scroll bar at the right (the one with the dates) that is aware of the entire context — even the parts that haven’t lazy loaded yet — and makes it easy to scroll to the end in one step.

[tooki]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

Well, they did code it from scratch, I was a part of the devs for the original web page.
What's going on with the kicad.info page I don't know, it's a forum, and the owner is hidden.

Well the link being discussed is the one on forum.kicad.info, which indeed is not even run by the KiCad devs! (Which I didn’t even realize at first.) The owner is not hidden, it’s stated right in the welcome post: https://forum.kicad.info/t/welcome-to-the-kicad-info-forums/6
…and in the Terms of Service: https://forum.kicad.info/tos

It runs on discourse, by the way.

[Thor-Arne]

Not what you really want for some engineering tool.

Because as we all know, the people writing the EDA are also writing the entire website from scratch, because reinventing every wheel you come across is a good use of time.

Well, they did code it from scratch, I was a part of the devs for the original web page.
What's going on with the kicad.info page I don't know, it's a forum, and the owner is hidden.

Well the link being discussed is the one on forum.kicad.info, which indeed is not even run by the KiCad devs! (Which I didn’t even realize at first.) The owner is not hidden, it’s stated right in the welcome post: https://forum.kicad.info/t/welcome-to-the-kicad-info-forums/6
…and in the Terms of Service: https://forum.kicad.info/tos

It runs on discourse, by the way.

You're right.
I was assuming that it was an official announcement, which in that case I would have been expecting it on kicad.org. 

In the context of the message I replied to, by Monkeh, I don't think my reply was that much off.

Actually, I had completely forgotten all about kicad.info.
Seems like it's way more official now than it was in the past as that post was made by Wayne Stambaugh.

[nctnico]

I tried to click on the various links but none bring me to a list with new features...

Whatever do you mean?!? That’s exactly what the first link does.

Not for me. I get a posting dated somewhere in Februari with other seemingly random posts below it. Anything except something which looks like a (simple) summary of added features. Maybe it is a Firefox issue?

[JohanH]

I get a posting dated somewhere in Februari with other seemingly random posts below it. Anything except something which looks like a (simple) summary of added features. Maybe it is a Firefox issue?

You see it but you get it wrong (I also use Firefox). It's a post beginning from February (when the 9.0 version development started) and as the text says, the (not random) posts below it, list all new features added over the year with quite comprehensive descriptions (not simple summaries). I guess when the final release is announced, there will be a summary also on the kicad.org site.