Don't require .pro file per board or schematic

[zakhar nasimov]

If any of .sch or .kicad_pcb are entitled anything other than a matching existing .pro file in identical directory a spurious .pro file is generated when running them. This might be deliberate and it seems it should reside in a menu configuration option to disable this functionality to permit users to modify different files.

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

The normal way to use kicad is to have one project with all its files inside the project directory. Editing hierarchical sheets is then not done by opening them from the OS file browser but with the help of the hierarchical navigator.

Could you therefore explain how you use kicad and why it is necessary for your workflow to use the OS file browser to start editing files?

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

different revisions or boards which do not need ANY accompanying schematic. The latter is something I have a plurality of boards for which each demand a .pro file for no purpose.

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

I especially make much use of bitmap to component converter. Its one of the more excellent and utmost useful features of kicad. With this I make boards which do not need any schematics or project files.

[[e-mail] (energijapanikoj)]

I also have this issue.

Sometimes I just need to mill out the board partially, excluding the most components, leaving only mechanical related components - connectors, mounting holes, slots, etc. I like to do this simple run of single sided PCB before sending the whole project for manufacturing. What I do is I copy kicad_pcb file to a separate file and remove all the unnecessary stuff. I don't need schematics for that, I just want some footprints at their locked positions. This .pro file autocreation is mildly annoying while I understand that stuf like project related footprint libraries and board settings are saved to .pro file.

On another hand this is related to making kicad more friendly to revision control systems - a lot of stuff is changed in the files while just zooming/panning and showing/hiding layers. It would be cool to have a single separate file containing all this relatively low priority information. I will write a separate wishlist ticket for this.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Some board settings are stored in the project file.

But I can change this to a wishlist item to stop doing that.

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

Maybe only make the .pro file when the board has changes saved?

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

Personally, I find this behavior more annoying when working in eeschema than pcbnew. Mostly because hierarchical sheets will normally generate schematics without associated .pro files. Opening one from stand-alone eeschema will pollute the directory.

This is new behavior introduced to the default loading behavior by lp:1745022

Perhaps a better solution would have been to load a dummy project from the temp location and allow it to be discarded.

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

@Seth, I think using a temporary dummy project file is a workable solution.

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Or detect if the directory has already a project file and open that instead of a dummy one (as it is likely that one wants the same settings in such a sub sheet compared to the main sheet even if opening it via the file browser.) Only if there is no project file would i go for creating a dummy project. (See it as opening the project but on a different page than the main one.)

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Maybe an even better long term solution would be to replace the append schematic functionality with a more powerful copy paste mechanism that can copy between projects (meaning between kicad instances) This would then mean that the standalone mode could be fully dropped.

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And regarding moving stuff into the schematic or pcb file: well i thought we wanted to move settings out of it to allow easier version control. Would this idea not run counter to that?

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2363