KiCad 7.0.0

What's new in this version:

Version 7 Changes:
- KiCad 7 is a big release despite coming only a year after KiCad 6 — in the past year, developers have made more than 6000 commits, fixing over 1200 reported issues and adding a number of new features. This post highlights some of the larger new features, but there are many other smaller improvements and fixes made by almost 200 different contributors.

General:
Release Schedule Change:
- While we missed our official annual release schedule date of January 31st, the annual release schedule went pretty well for our first attempt. We will continue to improve our stable release process going forward as we adapt to the new schedule.

Custom Fonts:
- Custom font support is now available in the schematic, PCB, and worksheet editors to allow the use of any system font.

Text Boxes:
- Text box support was added in both the schematic and PCB editors.

3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Support:
- 3Dconnexion has contributed support in the schematic, symbol library, PCB, and footprint editors and 3D viewer for their line of SpaceMouse products. For those unfamiliar, 3D mice are alternative input devices that give a unique way of navigating both 3D and 2D canvases that some users find more ergonomic or intuitive than traditional mice. Users with a 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse may find this a welcome addition to KiCad’s capabilities to support their needs.

Sentry Crash Reporting Data Collection:
- Sentry is an open source platform to capture application events, crash dumps, and other analytics.
- Both their hosted platform and the integrated SDK to handle crash reporting in C++ applications are open source on GitHub under the MIT license.
- Sentry has sponsored KiCad by providing the core team with access to their SaaS platform to receive crash reports from KiCad users. During the Version 7 development cycle, KiCad has enabled opt-in Sentry crash reporting for Windows users (we are exploring expanding Sentry to more platforms in a future release). Users will be prompted once when KiCad is first started, and may choose whether or not to enable Sentry. Users may also switch Sentry data collection on or off at any time in the KiCad preferences.
- Why do we want to collect data from users?
- The primary use in KiCad will be to capture crash reports. If KiCad crashes, the Sentry tool will automatically send a report to the KiCad team containing information such as stack traces and core dumps.
- In the future we may also use it to gather performance metrics of algorithms across the wider user base to answer questions such as "how long does it take on average to run the Fill All Zones command?".
- What data is collected if Sentry is enabled?
- A randomly-generated user ID (GUID) is created for each KiCad installation and is used to identify Sentry reports that come from the same installation (for example, if one user experiences a given crash three times).
- This user ID can be reset at any time by the user through KiCad preferences.
- Along with this user ID, Sentry collects crash dump information and extracts relevant portions such as call stacks and stack frames. The rest of the crash dump is discarded.
- To aid in avoiding the collection of personally-identifying information (PII), all Sentry reports pass through a "sentry-relay" server owned by KiCad before being transmitted to the Sentry SaaS platform. This prevents user IP addresses from being disclosed to Sentry.
- No KiCad design files are ever captured by Sentry.
- More details about Sentry in KiCad
- A new CMake variable, KICAD_USE_SENTRY, has been added where a value of OFF will disable the inclusion of the Sentry SDK entirely. The current default value is OFF, as only Windows support is tested.
- Sentry will only store at most 1 raw crash dump per report for analysis.
- Data in Sentry is retained for up to 90 days, and then is deleted.
- The introduction of Sentry resolves a long-standing desire of the KiCad team to capture crash dumps without user involvement, and the use of Sentry offers us a very easy solution to do it and help make KiCad better for everyone.
- Throughout the development of KiCad 7, the Sentry tool has already proven its usefulness by allowing the development team to resolve over two dozen crash bugs that were not previously reported by users. We look forward to this feature allowing us to continuously improve KiCad’s reliability over time.

PCM Automatic Updates:
- The Plugin and Content Manager now can automatically check if an updated version of an installed package is available and prompt the user to update. Content. Each time KiCad is launched, the plugin status is automatically queried in the background and displayed

Drag & Drop:
Drag and drop handles have been added to various parts of KiCad that results in the following actions:

KiCad:
- Dragging a kicad_pro or pro file onto the project manager will open that project.
- Command Line Interface
- The separate kicad-cli binary has been implemented to allow scripting of many of the KiCad editor outputs.

Schematic and Symbol Editors:
- Support for a simple rectangle and circle primitives has been added to the schematic and symbol editors to round out the shapes already provided.

Orthogonal Dragging:
- What is orthogonal dragging? In 6.0 and earlier, a drag operation in the Schematic Editor moves symbols while keeping wires attached to the symbol. However, it was a literal form of "attach" and wires would end up at odd angles and directions.

Symbol Editor Pin Table Enhancements:
The Symbol Editor Pin Table got a number of new features, including the ability to:
- Filter pins to a unit.
- Change unit of a pin from the table.
- Create or remove pins in a group symbol by adding/removing the pin number.

Off Grid ERC Warnings:
- A new ERC check to warn when symbols are placed using an a incompatible grid. A grid mismatch can lead to situations where connections are not truly made and with a cascade of other issues such as pins being passive can lead to scenarios where you end up producing bad PCBs.

Wires at 45 Degree Angles:
- KiCad 6 originally included a single toggle between fixed right-angle wires and "any angle" mode. This change introduces a wire mode for 45 degree start and end to help in drawing crisp schematics.

Do No Populate Support:
- Support has been added for explicitly marking symbols in a schematic as Do Not Populate ("DNP"). The resulting symbols are grayed out in the schematic and marked with a red cross. DNP symbols are excluded from any KiCad-generated placement files.

Simulation Model Editor:
- There is now a simulation model editor. This is a new dialog available as a "Simulation Model" button in the symbol properties of any schematic symbol. It allows configuration of simulation model parameters in a GUI rather than spice text inserted on schematic. The resulting configuration gets passed to the simulator as expected. Everything from configuring a symbol as "standard" spice model (resistors,caps,diodes,bjts) to assigning custom models in libraries (it will even load the library and let you select individual models contained within) is supported. It also allows for customization of the schematic pin to spice model pin mapping.

Database Libraries:
- A long requested feature by many users of KiCad has been the ability to link symbol selection to a database which is common in other schematic CAD tools. KiCad can now add connectivity to external databases via ODBC functionality across KiCad’s three main platforms.
- The database library system allows creating a centralized database of symbol to footprint associations along with any metadata about your parts that can be shared across your schematics by you and others connected to the same database.
- More information can be found in the KiCad database libraries documentation.
- An ongoing forum discussion about the feature shows how some users are starting to make use of databases in their KiCad workflows.

Dynamic field columns in symbol chooser:
- The database libraries support also introduced the ability to display and search custom fields in the symbol chooser.
- See the number of grouped pins.
- Dragging a Gerber or Gerber Job file onto the project manager will open the Gerber Viewer with those files.
- Dragging Eagle and Cadstar files will trigger an import of those files.
- Schematic Editor
- Dragging a kicad_sch file onto the editor will append the schematic to the open design.
- PCB Editor
- Dragging a kicad_pcb file onto the editor will append the board to the open design.
- Gerber Viewer
- Dragging files onto the Gerber Viewer will open them.
- Drawing Sheet Editor
- Dragging a kicad_wks file onto the editor will open it.

Hyperlinks on Schematics:
- Hyperlinks are now supported inside schematics. This means a text object on a schematic page can detect if the text is a hyperlink property. Hyperlink text makes the text object become clickable.

PDF Improvements:
PDF Bookmarks (Table of Contents):
- Support has been added for populating the bookmarks section (also known as the Table of Contents) of a PDF viewer with useful information.
- A schematic PDF generated by the plot action in the schematic editor, will contain bookmarks populated with a list of sheets and links to symbols within the sheet. Clicking on items on the bookmark list will jump to the relevant page and location.

Embedded Symbol Information:
- Support has been added the export of symbol information in schematics to the plotted PDF. This is a list of symbol field data displayed when the symbol is clicked in a PDF viewer. Unfortunately, the functionality required for this to work is implemented per PDF spec but support across PDF viewers is not consistent. Only Adobe PDF Reader/Acrobat are known to display the list correctly.

PDF Hyperlinks:
- Schematic hyperlinks are now embedded into the PDF and interactable.

This includes:
- Hyperlinks between pages.
- Hyperlinks to external URLs.
- Sheet symbols link to datasheets.

Board and Footprint Editors:

PCB Footprint Consistency Checking:
- A new optional check to determine if your board design has footprints that have deviated from the library they are linked to

Ignored DRC Tests Tab:
- Ignored tests are now listed in their own separate tab.

Mechanical Clearance Rules:
- Two new DRC rule constraints mechanical_clearance and mechanical_hole_clearance have been add to the custom rules that the complement the clearance and hole_clearance constraints.

Custom Rule Severities:
- Custom rule severities can now be defined per custom rule with possible values of ignore, warning, error, and exclusion.

Pad to Zone Rules:
- New custom rule constrains thermal_relief_gap, thermal_spoke_width and zone_connection have been added for rule checking copper connections that get generated between pads and zone fills.

Radial Dimensions:

Inverse Text Objects in PCB:
- Text objects can now declare as "Knockout" meaning the text will subtract from a shaded box. This is useful for making more attention grabbing silkscreen.

Automatic Zone Filling:
- There is now a new option that will automatically refill zones when a board change is detected rather than requiring the user to trigger zone fills manually. This is enabled by default to help new users, but may be disabled in case it gets in the way for power users or those working on very large designs.

PCB Layout Tool Enhancements:
- Many ease of use enhancements have been made to the board and footprint editors.

Background Bitmaps:
- A requested feature by users has been the ability to display an image in the background so that PCB traces and footprint layouts can be copied easily from some original reference PCB or footprint being reverse engineered.

Unroute Selected:
- It is now possible completely unroute a footprint.

Automatically Complete Trace Route:
- Traces can now be partially drawn and the board editor can complete the trace the rest of the way to the nearest ratsnest end. It will stop and force you to manually route if it can’t find a route.

Attempt to Finish Selection:
- Related to the trace route completion feature above, selected items can in the board editor can attempt to automatically route traces between them. It will iterate each unrouted part of the item and attempt to connect it to the nearest rats nest.

Search Panel:
- A new panel added to board editor enables typing query strings with wildcard s and filtering out objects on the design while displaying the remaining results in a list. The list can be clicked on to select objects on the editing canvas.

Properties Panel:
- A new properties panel is now available in the board editor.

Improved Footprint Spread and Pack & Move Footprint Tool:
- The algorithm that placed footprints on the PCB was improved to result in a more compact layout.

STEP Exporter Changes:
- The STEP exporter now uses the same PCB parsing engine as the rest of KiCad. This change now brings the addition relative 3d model paths to the footprint. Simply start the paths with the expected ./ or ../ and the 3D viewer and STEP exporter will attempt to find the model relative to the footprint file. This change should allow better portability of footprint libraries and 3d models.
- The "3D Path Aliases" have been removed from KiCad. These were an independent system from the "Environment Variable" system also used for paths. It had it’s own file format and usage syntax which both introduced unexpected bugs. Unifying the system makes the usage of Environment Variables standard throughout KiCad. "3D Path Aliases" will be automatically migrated to an environment variable on launch. However, the alias may get renamed if the alias had characters beyond uppercase A-Z,0-9 and underscores due to the limitations of environment variables across platforms.