Move footprint Exactly by its center

[maurosmartins]

Hello all,

I come from EAGLE cadsoft and starting to use Kicad. Version 6 is much better but there is still and issue I wasn't able to overcome.

in PCB Editor I'm not able to move the component exactly by its center. As can be seen on the following picture I cannot exactly move by tis center, only the next grid point nearby available.


in Eagle pressing the ctrl key would grab de component exactly from its center. I could than precisely place it anywhere I won't. In kicad I cannot reproduce this behavior.

Is there a way to achieve this?

looking forward your reply, Best regards, Mauro.

[ataradov]

In the Preferences -> Common -> Editing set a check box "Warp mouse to origin of moved object".

The placement of this setting is a bit annoying, since often you want to quickly control that behaviour, so something like a toolbar button would be nice. But as it is, it works fine, sine most of the time I want it set anyway.

[ebastler]

In the Preferences -> Common -> Editing set a check box "Warp mouse to origin of moved object".

The placement of this setting is a bit annoying, since often you want to quickly control that behaviour, so something like a toolbar button would be nice. But as it is, it works fine, sine most of the time I want it set anyway.

That option should also be set by default -- at least it is in my KiCad 6.0 installation, where I did not change much at all from the defaults.

[maurosmartins]

Thank you all for your quick reply,

In the Preferences -> Common -> Editing set a check box "Warp mouse to origin of moved object".

The placement of this setting is a bit annoying, since often you want to quickly control that behaviour, so something like a toolbar button would be nice. But as it is, it works fine, sine most of the time I want it set anyway.

that solves it, thank you so much!

In the Preferences -> Common -> Editing set a check box "Warp mouse to origin of moved object".

The placement of this setting is a bit annoying, since often you want to quickly control that behaviour, so something like a toolbar button would be nice. But as it is, it works fine, sine most of the time I want it set anyway.

That option should also be set by default -- at least it is in my KiCad 6.0 installation, where I did not change much at all from the defaults.

I've been testing options, maybe I had disabled it previously without knowing. Anyway it works perfectly.

Best regards, Mauro.

[ataradov]

consider is how one might define the center anyway -- if the component has an irregular shape more

In KiCad component center is the (0, 0) coordinate in the footprint editor. All well designed footprints have that  (0, 0) point placed in a meaningful place. For symmetrical components it is usually a center, for non-symmetrical something that makes logical sense. For example USB connector may have center at the expected edge of the board.

In any case, you generally want that center to snap to a grid. There is a number of exceptions, so there is an option for that.

[Bassman59]

consider is how one might define the center anyway -- if the component has an irregular shape more

In KiCad component center is the (0, 0) coordinate in the footprint editor. All well designed footprints have that  (0, 0) point placed in a meaningful place. For symmetrical components it is usually a center, for non-symmetrical something that makes logical sense. For example USB connector may have center at the expected edge of the board.

Except for reasons known only to them, the KiCad Library people decided that for through-hole parts, Pin 1 is the anchor point. This is why I haven't submitted any of my symbols to the library maintainers.