Cross-probing: clicking empty area in schematic highlights pads with no net on PCB

[Jon Evans]

When using cross-probe highlight (highlight tool selected in both eeschema and pcbnew), clicking empty area in eeschema will send a $NET: "" cross-probe message to pcbnew, which will then highlight any pads on the board that have no net (because the footprint has pads that are not linked up to symbol pins).

This probably isn't quite the right behavior. We should probably add a "clear highlight" message, and send that instead when clicking in empty space.

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Application: kicad
Version: 5.1.0-unknown-4896daa~82~ubuntu18.04.1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.58.0 OpenSSL/1.1.0g zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.4 libpsl/0.19.1 (+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.30.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.15.0-46-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.22
    Boost: 1.65.1
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.58.0
    Compiler: GCC 7.3.0 with C++ ABI 1011

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

Hi Jon,
I agree, We should add a "clear highlight" message.

I recently had a similar issue in Eeschema, and added a specific message
$CLEAR: "HIGHLIGHTED"
in eeschema/cross-probing.cpp

(using message $NET: "" was not a very good idea)

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision e0ada1379f3c70bfd1bad4a802c82aff507a391d
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=e0ada1379f3c70bfd1bad4a802c82aff507a391d