Would You Be Interested in Roadtesting KiCad EDA?

I learned a few things while importing that EAGLE project. I have tried it with another project, to check if it was project-specific or not. There are a few things worth discussing, I've placed it in a separate blog post:

 Working with KiCad 7: Importing EAGLE files  

I'm not happy with Altium dropping FPGA/Nanoboard and Embedded soft core software development.  They focus upon wanting more subscription fees without fixing existing bugs & dropping features.

From my experience, most of the work using a new PCB CAD package is establishing consistent sets of standardised Schematic components, PCB Lands and their libraries. I've found that supplied libraries and components are incomplete or misconfigured.  e.g. Voltage pins are set as passive pins and not hideable power pins.

A feature that I deem essential is the ability to move pins on schematic symbols so that schematics look neat, tidy and logical. Having the ability to logically group pins desired positions is essential for clarity.

COMPACT said:

A feature that I deem essential is the ability to move pins on schematic symbols so that schematics look neat, tidy and logical. Having the ability to logically group pins desired positions is essential for clarity.

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I like to do that, but it seems to me that lot of people don't bother. For me the schematic should try to express the design intent, but some seem quite happy for it to be a no more than a list of pins and nets.

I've even had the occasional complaint about splitting big chips up into functional blocks on the schematic.

MK

At some point EDA companies invented "hideable power pins". This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Nice HHGTTG reference!

I think KiCad will become even more famous amongst makers learning EAGLE is going to be discontinued (I read that Autodesk is going to discontinue EAGLE). 

This would be an interesting Roadtest for me if it hit at a time when I needed to design a small board. As far as what I'd like to see in the kit, perhaps if could include the production of the board being designed. Size and layers would probably need to be limited. 

I like having the power supply pins appear on the PDN (power distribution network) portion of schematics where applicable. This is easily done when you split up chips into functional components.

I can't understand why. It's the first thing I did with logic gates (& separate the power pins as a component).

One thing I've loathed with many schematic capture products are giant sized traditional logic symbols, poor graphics primitives or even lores bitmaps.