Add search box to Footprint Viewer

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior]

The dialog/window "Select footprint by browser" should have some search text box (and maybe some check box "use regular expressions"), also be set as focus to type when the dialog appear.
This 2 ccontrol could be placed after "Zoom fit footprint" and before "Insert footprint on board" buttons.
This will make quick to search by a footprint, improve UX and maybe make the "Choose fotprint" dialog on Pcbnew obsolete.

[ronnie (ronnie81)]

[Fist comment on this bug-/whishlist, and so far just user of KiCad. Bear with me].

I agree with the lack of a "quick" search function in the *library browser*.
Currently there are two toolbar icons > dialogs for searching (via first and second icons in the toolbar):
- "Select library to browse">"Select Library" (which is equivalent to menubar File>Select Active Library)
- "Select footprint to browse"/"Choose Footprint" (which has no equivalent in the menubar)
This is actually the same dialog as from pcbnew's menubar > Place > Footprint.

I would instead suggest to add text boxes for entry of a filter string on top of each column (library list, list of footprint {in active library}). I'd say to have just one text field would be even better. (The notation library:footprint could be re-used)

Anyways having the option to quickly select a footprint a footprint in the library browser via text entry would be awesome. I attached a mockup for visual reference.

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Could be just one text box after the button on the bar menu, not needing be under it.
I think an interesting UX point is that this control have the focus set when the dialog is load (so the user would start to type in the text box without click in any place and by the arrows <UP> & <DOWN> select one of the results and just press <ENTER>).

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

The main problem with a single textbox is that it requires all libraries to be loaded. The lazy loading of the Symbol & Footprint Viewers are one of their few remaining distinct features over the Symbol & Footprint Editors.

[ronnie (ronnie81)]

@Hildo, yes intial focus is key for it. Wherever the text entry is located.

@Jeff by "that it requires all libraries to be loaded" do you mean,
- all the content of all libs
- just all libraries names /paths with their footprint names.

I'm just trying to understand the inner workings better. Libs and footprints are implemented as folders and files. Is there a perfomance issue with it? I doubt it, but what do I know about KiCad.. ;)

And regarding "one of their few remaining distinct features over Sym & FP Editors": I was wondering about this too. What if Sym & FP Editor could open as readonly and offer same the feature as Lib * FP Browser. Probable less duplication in the code base.?

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

The footprint info list needs the number of pads (for CvPcb), so it currently loads in the entire content of the library.

That being said, most of the performance hit is in reading from disk, which we have to do just to get the footprint names (filenames). This is surprisingly slow for 1000s of files, even with modern SSDs.

And yes, there have been discussions about retiring the Browsers in favour of read-only Editors. Nothing has come of it (yet).

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

It is especially slow on Windows with standard HDs.

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Nice, I already saw the implementation of this issue on Pcbnew. Maybe use this also on Eschema Library Brownser

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Implemented on Pcbnew