GerbView: try harder to detect valid files inside zip archives (not just by file extension)

[Jon Evans]

GerbView currently checks for a limited set of file extensions when parsing files inside zip archives. Gerber files that don't have a file extension of 'pho' or starting with 'g' will be skipped. We should use some smarter logic to load files with other extensions that are valid (e.g. .ART files from Allegro)

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

Be careful

The only one "official" gerber extension is now .gbr
The .pho are the gerber files created by a very old pcbnew version.

[Jon Evans (craftyjon)]

Yes, but shouldn't we try to parse files created by other software if we can?

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

Perhaps.

Just keep in mind Excellon drill files are also similar to Gerber files because both are using a G-Code format.

[Evan Shultz (evan-shultz)]

It seems like the focus on GerbView's supported Gerber formats are extremely myopic towards KiCad. If the parser exists for the Gerber format, which it does, and KiCad can be a tool to view Gerbers from any other ECAD tool, it's hard for me to understand why that wouldn't be a useful feature.

For example, EAGLE import was just added. EAGLE has no built-in Gerber file extension (you can create a template and reload it on each project) so for users coming from EAGLE they may not be able to easily import Gerbers created with EAGLE. That's just one example.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/1848