Version 8 Project News

[IanJ]

Version 8 coming per:



Expected Jan. 31st 2024.

COMMON FEATURES:
SVG export improvements
Start up splash screen
Alternate hot keys
Windows arm64 support
EasyEDA project importer
ERC and DRC from command line interface (JSON output)

SCHEMATIC:
Support flat hierarchy multiple file designs
Object property panel for schematic and symbol library editors
Highlighted net navigator panel
Search panel
Internal bill of materials (BOM) tool
Object grid alignment in schematic and symbol library editors
Nested symbol inheritance
Tool to check for symbol library differences in schematic
Cadence Allegro PCB Designer netlist exporter
SVG and DXF import in schematic and symbol editors
CADSTAR symbol library importer
Altium symbol library importer
Eagle symbol library importer
Symbol editor library tree preview
Symbol library file changer watcher
Symbol library editor migrate third party and legacy libraries
Differential cursors in sumulator
Import LTSpice schematics
Major SPICE simulator improvements (FFT, S-parameters, Fourier, etc.)
Editable power symbols

BOARD:
Tool to check for footprint library changes in PCB editor
Altium footprint library importer
Import SolidWorks PCB files
Do not populate flag for position file export
Allow connectivity to graphics shapes on copper layers
Interactive meander tuning
STEP export improvements
Footprint editor properties panel
Footprint editor library tree preview
CADSTAR foorprint library importer

MISC:
Major 3D viewer improvements

PS. I have no involvement, I just typed this up from the slides presented in the video.

Ian.

[Fgrir]

Finally, the lack of a start up splash screen had me seriously considering going back to Altium 

But for real there are some nice improvements in that list and I am feeling better and better about not renewing my Altium subscription this year.

[Doctorandus_P]

Finally, the lack of a start up splash screen had me seriously considering going back to Altium

Sigh I hope that can be turned off. At the moment KiCad's project manager starts in less then a second and adding spash screens is such a waste of time (and developer effort).

[IanJ]

Finally, the lack of a start up splash screen had me seriously considering going back to Altium

Sigh I hope that can be turned off. At the moment KiCad's project manager starts in less then a second and adding spash screens is such a waste of time (and developer effort).

I guess it's a marketing thing to give the app some identity & presence on the desktop......but yes, I'll likely turn it off also.

Ian.

[themadhippy]

EasyEDA project importer

Yes please

[golden_labels]

I hope that can be turned off. At the moment KiCad's project manager starts in less then a second and adding spash screens is such a waste of time (and developer effort).

Unless the splash screen has been added, because KiCad 8 loads so slowly the user must has something to look at.

[SiliconWizard]

The list looks nice but I highly doubt the devs can get anything like this done and stable by the end of January.

[VEGETA]

internal BOM is fantastic, next should be internal native panellization tool.

what I wanted to see is the tabs systems instead of individual apps within the kicad main software. this will make it more modern and nicer.

some interactive routing features should also be added, like routing traces together and when coming close to other traces it pushes them around...etc

[golden_labels]

As for a multi-window interface: this is a bit deeper than it may seem, if you started using KiCad only recently. The historical context here is that KiCad was not started as a single application. Initially it was a collection of related, but otherwise independent tools. Until quite recently (about 5 years???) working with them still required manual generation and importing of netlists, and doing stuff in the right order. It has been improved since then and now KiCad gives a feeling of being a single application. But the legacy still remains and under the hood it’s a blob of glue keeping together a bunch of disconnected programs.

The consequence is: introducing an option to permit users to choose between multi-window and tabbed interfaces is going to require much more serious structural changes and effort than it may seem at a glance. I do not oppose the idea of giving such a choice, I am not saying it is not going to happen, but I want to make you aware this is not a matter of drawing a few components in an UI editor during two lazy evenings.

[Doctorandus_P]

The list looks nice but I highly doubt the devs can get anything like this done and stable by the end of January.

Why do you doubt that? I think KiCad V7.99 is going into feature freeze at the end of this month (September), so that means all those features are already implemented and it leaves four months of testing and bug fixing. And a lot of people can help with finding and reporting bugs. I have reported several bugs myself, and they tend to get fixed between less than half an hour and a few days.

In general, when a new mayor KiCad version is released, it is stable enough to be used for the "general public" and hobbyists, but if you have a company that depends on KiCad, then a lot of people have the opinion it's better to wait a few months with updating to the new mayor version and most of the remaining bugs have been fixed. Or at least be a bit cautious and not update all projects at the same time.

[Zoli]

Finally, the lack of a start up splash screen had me seriously considering going back to Altium

Sigh I hope that can be turned off. At the moment KiCad's project manager starts in less then a second and adding spash screens is such a waste of time (and developer effort).

The project manager is fast/instant loading, but the editors don't; it would make some sense to add splash screen to them instead of the current plain window/progress bar - just my .02$.

[Doctorandus_P]

]The project manager is fast/instant loading, but the editors don't;

Nope. As a test case I use the A64 OlinuXino which is the first project on: https://www.kicad.org/made-with-kicad/ (and the whole project is on github). On my Ryzen 5600G the schematic loads in about 1 second, and the PCB in around 2 seconds (or a bit less). There is just no time to show a splash screen and giving a user the ability to view it without stretching this startup window. And that would be a real nuisance. I quite often open other projects, sometimes for a quick reference, other times to make a copy of a part of it. Showing the splash screens each time is an annoyance.

Now I think about it, I think I haven't seen splash screens in many years. They are an artifact of ages gone by, when PC's were so slow that programs needed 30seconds or so just to start... After running some tests, only the Eclipse abomination shows a splash screen on my linux box. Some programs may attempt to show a (small) splash screen, as I see something blinking during program start, but I can't see what it is.

What is the use of showing what program is started? When I start KiCad, I already know KiCad is starting.
And on top of that, just that something silly like a splash screen generates a whole conversation here shows what a waste of time such an anti feature is.

[delfinom]

And on top of that, just that something silly like a splash screen generates a whole conversation here shows what a waste of time such an anti feature is.

Look, everyone keeps demanding we copy Altium, so we started copying Altium.

[Fgrir]

Look, everyone keeps demanding we copy Altium, so we started copying Altium.

But I didn't see "Access violation" pop-ups on the coming features   

[SiliconWizard]

And on top of that, just that something silly like a splash screen generates a whole conversation here shows what a waste of time such an anti feature is.

Look, everyone keeps demanding we copy Altium, so we started copying Altium.

So are you guys trying to give users who ask for Altium-like features a lesson?

[nctnico]

And on top of that, just that something silly like a splash screen generates a whole conversation here shows what a waste of time such an anti feature is.

Look, everyone keeps demanding we copy Altium, so we started copying Altium.

Please don't do that... even on a super duper fast PC Altium is slow like a snail. Altium got lots of things wrong as well so I hope you are joking.

[Macbeth]

I just typed Ki.. on my Windows 11 PC and KiCad 7.0 came up instantly, clicked on it and in a time I can only measure in milliseconds my last project was fully loaded without a stupid splash screen.

Splash screens are from the 8 bit era of loading games from tape in the 1980's. Why are they re-introducing them? 

[Veteran68]

Back in the day splash screens were needed to give you something to look at while things loaded. So you could be sure the program started when you clicked it, and you don't keep clicking because you weren't sure, then have multiple instances starting. It's a well established UI/UX principle that you should immediately give the user feedback when they interact with something. Don't just sit there working in the background and leave them hanging.

These days, it's more about one word: Branding. It's the software equivalent of a billboard.

Hopefully, they'll have the option to disable it.

[tszaboo]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

[delfinom]

Back in the day splash screens were needed to give you something to look at while things loaded. So you could be sure the program started when you clicked it, and you don't keep clicking because you weren't sure, then have multiple instances starting. It's a well established UI/UX principle that you should immediately give the user feedback when they interact with something. Don't just sit there working in the background and leave them hanging.

These days, it's more about one word: Branding. It's the software equivalent of a billboard.

Hopefully, they'll have the option to disable it.

I can assure you, the 3-5 seconds (or more depending on your potato) it takes kicad to start up on Windows is not because of branding but because of how Windows file system caching works. The first start (after a Windows restart) will always be slow and it's not even a KiCad controllable thing. The subsequent restarts are always instant due to said file system cache. This extends to many programs throughout the history of Windows and Microsoft has never really improved it.

Conversely, macOS and Linux apps start near instantly because there's no caching layer operating in the same way as Windows does it. Coincidentally, the splash screen currently appears and disappears in less than a blink of the eye on those platforms

You can even see this behavior on Windows when causing a KiCad footprint library load, the first time on Windows, depending on your PC can be a slog taking tens of seconds. Every subsequent restart is really fast and that's not due to anything KiCad is doing but that silly disk caching layer.

tl;dr, the splash screen is adding absolutely zero overhead, it does not have a magic delay timer. It is loaded immediately on launch and closes the first chance loading is complete.
Maybe we'll pencil in "disabling the splash screen" as a feature in v10.

[nctnico]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

In my experience importing / converting designs / libraries is highly overrated and should not be relied on. The problem is that for import to really work, both pieces of software need to treat objects in the exact same way or must have primitives / properties that supply 100% compatible counterparts. The chance of that being the case is extremely low. This means you are very likely left with wonky symbols/ footprints and are better off creating new symbols / footprints which use the proper primitives / properties that match the workflow the software is using. Been there, done that.

[Doctorandus_P]

JayzTwoCents recently did a review of an SSD that transfers 13GByte/s.

Also, on the KiCad users forum, there is a thread on which just now a link to the third video of KiCon 2023 has been posted.
https://forum.kicad.info/t/kicon-2023-videos/44977

Or go to youtube and look at the other video's from the https://www.youtube.com/@kicadeda/videos channel.

[SiliconWizard]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

In my experience importing / converting designs / libraries is highly overrated and should not be relied on. The problem is that for import to really work, both pieces of software need to treat objects in the exact same way or must have primitives / properties that supply 100% compatible counterparts. The chance of that being the case is extremely low. This means you are very likely left with wonky symbols/ footprints and are better off creating new symbols / footprints which use the proper primitives / properties that match the workflow the software is using. Been there, done that.

Yeah, overall I agree with this. While the feature looks attractive to people who haven't switched to a different software yet and are reluctant because of their existing libraries, the end result of automatic conversion is very often disappointing and requires a lot of additional work. So, yeah.

[SiliconWizard]

KiCad has never taken 5 seconds to start on my machines when I was using it on Windows. It was nearly instant just like on Linux. But I was using it on Windows 7, so maybe things have gotten worse on more recent Windows versions, I don't know.

The one thing that tended to be slowish was the first run of the symbol and footprint editors  - it was unbearably slow with libraries on a HDD, even the fastest HDD available. It was taking about 5 s on a SATA SSD. And less than 1 s on a NVMe SSD. Completely forget about using KiCad on anything other than a SSD, and do not even think of using libraries on a server on your network rather than locally on a very fast SSD.

[tszaboo]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

In my experience importing / converting designs / libraries is highly overrated and should not be relied on. The problem is that for import to really work, both pieces of software need to treat objects in the exact same way or must have primitives / properties that supply 100% compatible counterparts. The chance of that being the case is extremely low. This means you are very likely left with wonky symbols/ footprints and are better off creating new symbols / footprints which use the proper primitives / properties that match the workflow the software is using. Been there, done that.

What I've done was OrCAD imports to Altium. It was working quite well, the footprints were usable, and the Schematic symbols as well. Though they remained those ugly OrCAD symbols. The only part which wasn't usable was the 3D STEP objects, which doesn't really prevent you from using it. I had boards imported from orcad to altium, and made significant changes to it, releasing into production, so not just a quick trial.

And having the importer for people to use is nice, but that's not what should be exciting. Würth has Altium library for practically all their components. If someone sits down, imports, maybe fixes, and orcad-ifys all the libraries, you suddenly have access to thousands of components in Orcad. Do that for all the easyEDA files, and a few other manufacturers and suddenly there is a significant library available as standard in orcad. Exciting times.

[Veteran68]

KiCad has never taken 5 seconds to start on my machines when I was using it on Windows. It was nearly instant just like on Linux. But I was using it on Windows 7, so maybe things have gotten worse on more recent Windows versions, I don't know.

KiCad 7 starts instantly (well, <2sec from icon click to main window appearing) on my Windows 11 machine no matter whether it's the first time or 10th time. But I also have a pretty beefy system (i9 12th Gen, Gen4 NVMe, 32GB RAM) so probably not a representative sample of the typical KiCad user.

[nctnico]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

In my experience importing / converting designs / libraries is highly overrated and should not be relied on. The problem is that for import to really work, both pieces of software need to treat objects in the exact same way or must have primitives / properties that supply 100% compatible counterparts. The chance of that being the case is extremely low. This means you are very likely left with wonky symbols/ footprints and are better off creating new symbols / footprints which use the proper primitives / properties that match the workflow the software is using. Been there, done that.

What I've done was OrCAD imports to Altium. It was working quite well, the footprints were usable, and the Schematic symbols as well. Though they remained those ugly OrCAD symbols. The only part which wasn't usable was the 3D STEP objects, which doesn't really prevent you from using it. I had boards imported from orcad to altium, and made significant changes to it, releasing into production, so not just a quick trial.

And having the importer for people to use is nice, but that's not what should be exciting. Würth has Altium library for practically all their components. If someone sits down, imports, maybe fixes, and orcad-ifys all the libraries, you suddenly have access to thousands of components in Orcad. Do that for all the easyEDA files, and a few other manufacturers and suddenly there is a significant library available as standard in orcad. Exciting times.

That is just as much work as creating the footprints from scratch. Orcad comes with a vast library of symbols, so you don't need to convert those. If you need to check a footprint, it is just as easy to create it.

[tszaboo]

That is just as much work as creating the footprints from scratch. Orcad comes with a vast library of symbols, so you don't need to convert those. If you need to check a footprint, it is just as easy to create it.

Not for connectors, those are mayor  PITA. And then there are all the STEP files that are very useful even for inductors, the different electrolytic capacitor packages.
And ICs are very very error prone, for the SCH symbol.
I was converting from Orcad, to Altium as the previous contractor used that software for the board, and we needed it changed, and the license lapsed.

[SuperFungus]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

[SiliconWizard]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

Would be useful.

[Kais]

In the mean time the release candidate for version 8 RC1 is out:
https://www.kicad.org/blog/2024/01/KiCad-Version-8-Release-Candidate-1/

[shapirus]

Anyone who's using Linux, does the memory leak that I described in https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/16404 reproduce for you? What are you using: X11, Wayland?

It apparently does not reproduce under Windows, at least, per one comment in that ticket.

For me with X11 (and KDE) it reproduces very reliably, which makes me restart kicad from time to time to avoid OOM, and that's quite annoying. And that's even though I have 64GB of RAM on my desktop -- it would've been much worse with 32, let alone 16.

If more people can reproduce it, then we can try to narrow down a specific enviroment where it occurs, which may help the developers fix the leak before 8.0 is released. I think it's a quite serious bug, as is any significant memory leak.

Also, does anyone have any suggestion of a memory leak detection tool that I could use to track what exactly is not freeing memory in my case?

[nctnico]

IMHO Valgrind is THE tool of choice to find memory leaks in Linux software. I had to use it a couple of times and it works like a charm after a short RTM session. But you'll likely need unstripped binaries with debugging information enabled for Valgrind to show you which line of code is causing the leak.

[shapirus]

IMHO Valgrind is THE tool of choice to find memory leaks in Linux software. I had to use it a couple of times and it works like a charm after a short RTM session. But you'll likely need unstripped binaries with debugging information enabled for Valgrind to show you which line of code is causing the leak.

Yeah I should have known, as I used valgrind for my own programs myself (even though it was 20 years ago).

KiCad is running super extra slow under it though... Will see if it reports anything.

update: it's not just slow, but it appears to be going into an infinite loop once I click the start simulation button. Happens with both memcheck and massif. Meh.

I guess I'll try some other tools. I remember there were a few that would LD_PRELOAD their libs that substitute the normal malloc() calls, now I need to dig them out of my memory or just find them from scratch.

[SiliconWizard]

I'd be curious to see what Valgrind finds with Firefox...

[afkiwers]

Don't forget HTTP library support. KiCad can now communicate with REST APIs.

I made a plugin for InvenTree if anyone is keen to source their components straight from their own source.
https://github.com/afkiwers/inventree_kicad

[retiredfeline]

I'd be curious to see what Valgrind finds with Firefox...

Isn't Firefox written in Rust these days? I'm not aware of Valgrind support for Rust.

[retiredfeline]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

A dev mentioned in Jan 2023 that it won't be in v8.

[Sariel]

Does anyone know, when Kicad 8.0 is about to be released?
I can't wait 

[JohanH]

I don't know (but interested, too), but the number of issues marked for the 8.0 release is still high:

https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=8.0

Ultimately it's the same decision in any project. While bugs are being slowly fixed, you have to decide which bugs to include in the scope and which ones are moved to next release. It's not just coding and testing, also some bureaucracy.

[shapirus]

Does anyone know, when Kicad 8.0 is about to be released?
I can't wait 

It's very usable as it is already, you can always grab the latest release candidate or nightly build and give it a try. No need to necessarily wait for a release marked as such.

[SiliconWizard]

I noticed they seem to have removed a ton of QFN footprints from the library - I pull it from the git repo. If anyone happens to know why, or maybe they have renamed/relocated some?

[Doctorandus_P]

The Package_DFN_QFN.pretty library changed from 608 files (for V7)  to 615 files (V8.0.0~rc2), so not much changed over there. There has been a change in the way the search functions works, and maybe that putt you on the wrong track.

[julian1]

Another recent update video, which is an easy watch, and summarizes new features.
An addition test release-candidate is needed before expected final release in the middle of February.

FOSDEM 2024 - KiCad Status Update

[SiliconWizard]

The Package_DFN_QFN.pretty library changed from 608 files (for V7)  to 615 files (V8.0.0~rc2), so not much changed over there. There has been a change in the way the search functions works, and maybe that putt you on the wrong track.

Small mix-up here, it's not the footprints, but a bunch of the 3D models for QFN packages that got recently deleted. Not sure why.

[hpw]

I don't know (but interested, too), but the number of issues marked for the 8.0 release is still high:

https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=8.0

Ultimately it's the same decision in any project. While bugs are being slowly fixed, you have to decide which bugs to include in the scope and which ones are moved to next release. It's not just coding and testing, also some bureaucracy.

The sum of bugs is a constant. An old SW rule 

Lock at the real work at https://gitlab.com/groups/kicad/-/milestones/19#tab-issues

even V7.011 still at RC1 ... I guess, we will see for V8 the same nightmare as 2023 for V7

my 2 cents

Hp

[JPortici]

I guess, we will see for V8 the same nightmare as 2023 for V7

what?

[SiliconWizard]

I usually wait about 6 months when a new version is released before switching to it. Yes often the first couple of months are a bug fest. But I don't blame. Really the KiCad dev team has very limited means, and there's never enough testers before the releases. The problem being that the people using KiCad for anything serious rarely want to use a beta version for day-to-day work, and thus the real issues begin to show up when the software is finally released.
Not specific to KiCad either...

[dfnr2]

Just a quick first impression of Kicad 8.

I'm doing a small board design with electromechanical components and a bunch of driver circuitry, very tight on space.  Our mechanical engineer sent me some STEP files and some DXF's of the various zones.  I was planning to do this in Altium but decided to do this one in Kicad 8 instead, as Altium 24 is a bit crashy and is now very sluggish (on my Parallels VM, which I normally use, and also a dedicated Windows 11 machine, an HP Z8 beast).  Don't get me wrong, I like my Altium, and just renewed, but am looking to incorporate Kicad where possible, in hopes of eventually moving over entirely.


- The DXF import was very smooth, and the process of importing the DXFs to create the board outline and various mechanical height zones was a breeze.

- My 3D Connexion wired and portable space mice work perfectly, not only in the 3D view, but in all of the editors.  Just like Altium.  This was a very welcome surprise.  I saw some limited space mouse support in v7, but this has greatly improved.

- The 3D viewer has more detailed visibility control than v7 and works very smoothly.

- Importing Altium libs is very slick and works very well.

- Having properties panels in all editors is a big improvement.

- The new grid alignment system makes it MUCH easier to move around text to look nice while keeping components on the grid, without a lot of extra manual overhead.

- The RC3 is still a bit crashy and has some rough spots, but is very usable.

- Altium has more powerful tools for manipulating and aligning 3D bodies, but even without those tools, placing 3D bodies in footprints in Kicad is not difficult.  I don't really need Altium's advanced 3D features, so perhaps I'm not the best to report on this.

- The CLI makes it nearly as easy to produce a documentation and design output package as Altium's OutJobs.  It would be really nice to be able to save some viewports in the 3D viewer and then render the PCB using the viewports from the command line.  That would allow me to completely automate the package generation.  I am aware that KiBot can do this.  I will have to look into it.  But it would be nice to have from the CLI directly.

- There's an integraded BOM, but KiBOM is better.

- ERC / DRC is pretty good

- Constraints are pretty good

- I would REALLY like to see pin swapping / part swapping.  I saw it's not in the preliminary road map for v9, but I would be willing to donate toward this.

- Board outlines are fine in Kicad, but Altium has better tools for creating board outlines, manipulating them, and creating other objects form board outlines.

Overall, Kicad 8 is very impressive, and is usable for professional work.  There are some areas where Altium is better, including 3D/mechanical co-design (although I'm not convinced the workflow saves that much time), routing of high-speed differential pairs, a cloud workspace for collaboration (for those who use it.  I haven't yet), and Altium has a bit more polish in some areas.  But, it's getting sluggish and it's insanely expensive to maintain.  I can't wait to see how Kicad developes over the next few years.  My altium subscription expires in 3 years.  I suspect by then it will be tough to justify renewing again.

[JPortici]

- I would REALLY like to see pin swapping / part swapping.  I saw it's not in the preliminary road map for v9, but I would be willing to donate toward this.

Shift+B is a good workaround for that. However it has a problem in that it doesn't change the orientation of the parts, i think it just swaps the coordinates. If they augmented it to also exchange the orientation we would have Part Swapping already.
Pin swapping i see it to be more difficult, but in say microcontroller projects, for anything that isn't strictly microcontroller like programming/reset circuitry/LEDs, i usually attach a label to a pin, and when i have to move it i move the label (or swap two labels with Shift+B) and presto.

- Board outlines are fine in Kicad, but Altium has better tools for creating board outlines, manipulating them, and creating other objects form board outlines.

True, i find it hard to do nontrivial outlines, but then again i always used a 2D cad to draw them and then import the DXF into the layer

[SiliconWizard]

What I really wish it had is the ability to store presets for the Plot options.

As it still is, it's utterly annoying: it's much too easy to screw up a setting when generating CAM files and not notice. This is aggravated by the fact that the settings are common for the different output formats you can select.
So, a typical use case (and major annoyance):
- You want to plot one or more layers to DXF,
- Then later you generate Gerber files. The same settings as what you set for the DXF are selected, and they have 99% chances of not being the same as you want for Gerbers.
- Horrific.

Looks like a small thing, but a really annoying issue. I don't know if they added it in v8. Tell me they did.

[SiliconWizard]

I'd be curious to see what Valgrind finds with Firefox...

Isn't Firefox written in Rust these days? I'm not aware of Valgrind support for Rust.

In what dimension exactly?

According to this: https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
it's about 11% of Rust overall. I don't even know how one could think that such a monster as Firefox could be entirely rewritten in another language in less than 20 years and without breaking most of it.

As to Valgrind and Rust, yes sir: https://nnethercote.github.io/2022/01/05/rust-and-valgrind.html

[shapirus]

- The RC3 is still a bit crashy

Crashes are typically considered high priority issues. If you have a reproducible crash scenario, don't hesitate to open a new issue at https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues.

[MitjaN]

Pin swapping i see it to be more difficult, but in say microcontroller projects, for anything that isn't strictly microcontroller like programming/reset circuitry/LEDs, i usually attach a label to a pin, and when i have to move it i move the label (or swap two labels with Shift+B) and presto.

For Stub swapping (https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/16898) there is a plugin available. It is a bit awkward as schematics has to be closed and it generates quite significant schematics diff. But it might be useful for some.