Visibility enhancements for hierarchical sheets

[Leandro Heck]

This feature is pretty unfinished, I feel.

So, I am adding here what I miss from this hierarchical feature.

1. Improve support to resize the hierarchical sheet (right now it is made from the bottom right, which is a pain to reorganize things). Maybe it could be treated like a symbol and edited in with the symbol editor.
2. Better support to move, reorganize the hierarchical labels. If something like the #1 is a good idea, this process can be easy like to organize pins in a symbol.
3. Background color like the symbols has (maybe a light-gray/green/blue)
4. Remove (or hide) "Sheet:" and "File:" labels
5. Possibility to hide the entire "Sheet:Sheetname" label
6. Possibility to hide the entire "File:Filename" label

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

(1) and (2) should be addressed by the "modern toolset for eeschema" slated for 6.0.

[Tim N. Tashpulatov (tim-tashpulatov)]

(3) has been requested at least once - https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1784841

Quoting Wayne Stambaugh:

This change is dependent on the new schematic file format which will allow for optional filling and fill color of hierarchical sheets.

Changed in kicad:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
milestone: none → 6.0.0-rc1

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

For (4) I'd just as soon let the user decide what the title is. If they want "Sheet: " in it then they can type that themselves.

Again, for (5) if we don't put "Sheet:" in front, and they want no titles on their sheets, then don't give them a Sheet Name. (I don't think we use that internally anywhere, do we?)

For (6) I think the status bar (or Properties dialog) is sufficient. We should just stop drawing the filename on the canvas.

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

The sheet name is used to prefix the local labels inside a sheet. It is mandatory.
(It is similar to a component reference.)
And needed by the hierarchy navigator.

The filename is also important: when 2 sheets have the same filename, they are in fact 2 instances of the same sheets.
So in hierarchies we need the filename to know if it is a complex hierarchy or not.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@JP, well that wrecks my solution for (4). ;)

As long as we're handling (3) via a file format change (see the linked message in comment #2), I'd suggest that we add a Sheet Title to the existing Sheet Name. Note that while the Sheet Name is sheet-specific, the title (and fill?) would be sheet-reference-specific.

That would solve both (4) and (5).

Are you OK with my proposal for (6)?

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

@Jeff

Exactly, I am OK with an option to show/hide these 2 fields (not remove or accept empty fields).

It is similar to show/hide ref and value fields of symbols.

I am unable to see the interest of the hide option, but everybody is free to use it or not.
(But I am able to see the interest of adding custom fields, like in schematic symbols)

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Summary:

(a) Implement 4-corner resize with new toolset for eeschema
(b) Implement background fill and title parameter with new file format
(c) Implement user-defined fields with new file format
(d) Display title above sheet instead of sheetname
(e) Display sheetname and filepath only in status bar

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

On 8/23/2018 10:16 AM, Jeff Young wrote:
> Summary:
>
> (a) Implement 4-corner resize with new toolset for eeschema
> (b) Implement background fill and title parameter with new file format
> (c) Implement user-defined fields with new file format
> (d) Display title above sheet instead of sheetname
> (e) Display sheetname and filepath only in status bar
>
(f) Allow custom position, visibility, and font for sheet and file name
(g) Allow custom fill colors (new file format required).

[Leandro Heck (leoheck)]

Perfect.

@Jeff, how is the process to organize/move pins inside the sheet block?

Is it similar to edit a symbol with the Symbol Editor with all of its functionalities OR is it still the same process previous process inside the EEschema?

If the process is still the same, is it possible to improve the way pins are moved/placed? I would like to at least move multiples at once.

[Leandro Heck (leoheck)]

Also, including here, is it possible to improve the navigator window? It would be nice to have some option to dock it in the EEschema window, or, at least, an option to keep it always on top.

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

This should be filed as a separate bug report.

On 8/23/2018 1:00 PM, Leandro Heck wrote:
> Also, including here, is it possible to improve the navigator window? It
> would be nice to have some option to dock it in the EEschema window, or,
> at least, an option to keep it always on top.
>

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Another crack at a summary:

(a) Implement 4-corner resize with new toolset for eeschema
(b) Implement complete fields model (a la symbols) with title, sheetname and filename mandatory (and associated with %T, %S and %F variables)
(c) Title defaults to visible above sheet; others default to invisible
(d) Allow custom fill colors

(b), (c) and (d) require new file format.

[ronnie (ronnie81)]

I've done a bit of work here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/593886/comments/2
But now seeing this bug, seems I've worked the wrong direction. :(

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@Ronnie, I do think it will be a lot easier to get this working in the new toolset. Look at the bright side: you learned a lot about Kicad!

The new toolset is next on the list once we get 5.1 out, so you're not too far in front of the 8-ball.

[ronnie (ronnie81)]

@Jeff, never mind. The learning was it worth for sure. :)

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

(a) has been implemented.

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

See dup (#1788070) - be able to assign a schematic symbol to a sheet.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2216