I've designed a dozen or so boards using KiCAD, some in commercial production. You definitely have to get into its way of thinking, but once you do KiCAD works

I've designed a dozen or so boards using KiCAD, some in commercial production. You definitely have to get into its way of thinking, but once you do KiCAD works very well (as long as you only need design-rule checking and not more complex simulation). Using keyboard shortcuts allows you to work quickly once you learn what they are. I haven't tried the new version, but from the previous stable release the feedback I have is that it needs better component and footprint management. As an open source project it should be easy for users to not only use components (this needs work), but also to contribute new ones. If you make a component locally there should be an automatic offer to upload it to an online component repository. The other thing is that I wish I could edit component fields in something approximating a spreadsheet view. I always maintain a separate BOM spreadsheet to track things beyond reference number. I'd like to list component IDs directly in KiCAD, but some (especially passive components) have very long names that clutter the schematic and silkscreen. I'd like the ability for component names to have "display" and "full" views, with the schematic showing the former and a generated BOM showing the latter. Ideally more fields would be built in too, so it wouldn't be necessary to add keys for extra fields. Something like: description, chemistry / type, package, mfg, part number mfg, part number mouser, value, tolerance, qty, reference, unit ($), ext ($), 1k pricing ($), ext 1k ($), datasheet, note This flowchart captures the KiCAD experience pretty well (though the "PCB Done" step is decidedly more time consuming than its symbol suggests):http://docs.kicad-pcb.org/en/getting_started_in_kicad.html#kicad-work-flow-overview http://docs.kicad-pcb.org/en/getting_started_in_kicad.html#k...