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Care to explain what's new in 5.0 regarding library management? I'm considering rolling out a standalone library (package) management for Kicad re-using infras

Care to explain what's new in 5.0 regarding library management? I'm considering rolling out a standalone library (package) management for Kicad re-using infrastructure from Haskell (stripped down Hackage + Stackage servers). This way there would be a versioned repository people could upload their libraries to and from your own project you can depend on these libraries. Stackage would then create a snapshots of these so even stuff built years ago can still find correct version of Kicad and libraries.

bb88 8y ago
The big changes are the foot prints are being downloaded instead of using the github plugin. http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/02/10/whats-coming-in-kicad-version-5/ http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/02/10/whats-coming-in-kicad-ver... I think there's maybe two things added to kicad that could be very awesome. 1. For SMD components, take a part, put it on a flatbed scanner and scan the footprint directly and allow you to edit widths before using it. Then I could just order the parts and use them in my designs without having to spend a lot of time constructing the footprints. Heck even just an overlay of the image onto the grid would be fine. 2. Something like what you're doing, except as a full blown SaaS solution that does pins, symbols, footprints, and 3d models on demand.
bb88 8y ago
I just installed and run the 5.0rc2 release from the KiCAD ppa on ubuntu. The library is speedy, it's really easy to find parts. They are also separating the Kicad Library into it's own github repo, which should make it simple to add and update parts. Footprints can be imported from an image directly (which means you could scan a part and save the raw jpeg.) The only trick is that you need to know the X&Y dpi for the image. This means you could calculate from scanning a ruler, or by editing/cleaning up the the image in a photo editor and then importing it directly into kicad.

bb88 8y ago

The big changes are the foot prints are being downloaded instead of using the github plugin. http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/02/10/whats-coming-in-kicad-version-5/ http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/02/10/whats-coming-in-kicad-ver... I think there's maybe two things added to kicad that could be very awesome. 1. For SMD components, take a part, put it on a flatbed scanner and scan the footprint directly and allow you to edit widths before using it. Then I could just order the parts and use them in my designs without having to spend a lot of time constructing the footprints. Heck even just an overlay of the image onto the grid would be fine. 2. Something like what you're doing, except as a full blown SaaS solution that does pins, symbols, footprints, and 3d models on demand.

bb88 8y ago

I just installed and run the 5.0rc2 release from the KiCAD ppa on ubuntu. The library is speedy, it's really easy to find parts. They are also separating the Kicad Library into it's own github repo, which should make it simple to add and update parts. Footprints can be imported from an image directly (which means you could scan a part and save the raw jpeg.) The only trick is that you need to know the X&Y dpi for the image. This means you could calculate from scanning a ruler, or by editing/cleaning up the the image in a photo editor and then importing it directly into kicad.