KiCAD 7 (RC) - Testing and looking for feature "Skeletal View" ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2023, 11:30:59 am
content: Downloaded Version 7 RC today, nightly build 27th of january and began exploring it.In the preferences menus, there are a number of settings but my "favorite" setting, coming from Cadence where I useskeletal view of traces and shapes is not available. In the Cadence settings, the opacity and the contour (skeletal) viewcan be controlled independently. This feature "unclutters" a complex board design where otherwise one layer blocks the viewof others under it. The layer preiority can be set but IMO, the skeletal view is a very nice graphic feature.Now: Is there such a setting in KiCAD that I have not found?

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2023, 11:51:26 am
content: If you look on the left-hand side menu, you can switch the pads, tracks and via's to outline mode. If you look at the right-hand menu under objects, you can control the opacity of layers. There are other layer highlighting features that I'm sure you'll find as you continue to explore KiCad.

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2023, 01:58:43 pm
content: That would be in the editor environment and not in the preferences menu then.I did not get that far but I will will be looking for this feature. It would be v e r y nice to have...

author: MadScientist
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2023, 02:06:29 pm
content: Quote from: djsb on January 28, 2023, 11:51:26 amYou can achieve similar things with kicad , yes

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2023, 01:59:46 pm
content: BTW, be careful with nightly and RC versions. I've been using it for a couple of weeks, but since a week ago I can't open some projects. Eeschema and Pcbnew segfault when opening the projects. So I have two small projects now that are stuck, because I made them with the development version and they just crashes when trying to open them. And also many older projects made with 6.0 crashes when opening. Some projects don't crash however (smaller ones?) and when I make a new project from scratch it doesn't crash. Hopefully the issue is known and will be fixed.

author: hpw
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2023, 02:00:50 pm
content: Quote from: JohanH on January 29, 2023, 01:59:46 pmHmm, it may a good idea to post your problems on the issue DB... the issue is may only related to your project(s)... otherwise the developers have no chance to fix it.. just IMHO, one is know about net lists as on 7 rc2.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2023, 11:16:38 am
content: Quote from: hpw on January 30, 2023, 02:00:50 pmI figured out where the issue came from (including a workaround) and reported it. Looks like the bug is now potentially delaying the 7.0 release further, unless it's a quick fix. Sorry everyone!

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2023, 11:19:11 am
content: Quote from: JohanH on February 07, 2023, 11:16:38 amThey fixed it already. That was quick!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2023, 07:51:55 pm
content: Not sorry. Thanks. I expect the switch to v7 to be full of "surprises", even after the RC phase, so anything that can be ironed out during this phase is welcome.One question about the libraries: can you tell us about compatibility with v6? Do v6 libraries have to be converted in some way for v7? Are the v7 libraries definitely incompatible with v6?

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2023, 10:16:59 pm
content: I'm not sure about libraries. But projects can't definitely be converted back. I tried and it was somewhat possible to open in v6 after some diffing and command line trickery (removing lots of new attributes from the v7 project files). But the projects were broken and had to be repaired. Now if I'm upgrading to v7 I'm not looking back, so I don't intend to try using newer libraries with older versions. Maybe someone else knows? Importing v6 projects and libraries to 7 is seamless.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2023, 10:11:24 am
content: Looks like there is now a stable 7.0.0 tag since yesterdayhttps://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/tagsCongratulations to all involved!I guess they are still smoke testing various platforms before release announcement.Up and running now from Fedora Copr repository. It says "7.0.0-1.fc37, release build". (Note that the Copr repository is experimental and not an official repository).

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2023, 06:42:47 pm
content: Several users are also getting excited because they already got V7.https://forum.kicad.info/t/v7-release-just-updated-on-my-system/40132/9And this is normal. It takes some time to roll out the new version on all platforms, and the official announcement is usually only made after it's available for all platforms. Otherwise there would be a lot of confusion and complaints about an version release that is not available for everyone yet.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2023, 07:29:28 pm
content: Gonna try and build it.