Select one from stacked elements

[Piotr Gałka]

In PcbNew pressing E at stacked elements should allow to select which one you wont to edit.
I have 3 footprints one over another (ferrite plate, antenna for 13.56MHz, antenna for 125kHz). I didn't found other way to enter by E to one I need then moving others. But I have them exactly located previously.

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.2)-1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.68.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.61.1
    Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

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

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Use the ALT key to force disambiguation. (Left click while pressing alt will bring up the disambiguation dialog for all things possible at that position.)

Having outline drawings on fab, silk and courtyard also greatly aids in selecting the right footprint to edit as anything enclosed within that outline is then assumed to be part of the footprint. (Not sure which layer is the most important here. Have done too little testing for that.)
Pad only footprints are quite hard to select.

[Piotr Gałka (piotrgalka)]

I have done (before reporting that bug) some testing - for example I found that selecting one of my elements at schematic helps me to get into edition of it at PCB by right-click and then selecting Properties but not helps if I try to just click E.
I had no chance to find that ALT - I don't have it at my list of hotkeys so I don't think I would try it.

My elements are all big (4cm diameter) and consists of really only thin circles at Fab, CrtYd and SilkS (no pads). They all are at bottom and there are no footprints at top in that region - so when I have mouse there only these elements I can have in mind.

Now I found when clicking E generates a question which footprint I have in mind. Exactly as I expected to see it. It is when I zoom in so that I have really clear screen - some parts of circles of my elements are only in screen corners. I don't understand why if I zoom so that I see these elements in their whole than E always selects one of then not asking me which one I wont.

If it would never asked that question I could suppose it just have no that feature, but if it asks when I have my elements bigger then screen and not asks when I have them equal to screen I think it is a bug.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

> I don't have it at my list of hotkeys so I don't think I would try it

This part has been fixed in 6.0, but it's part of the big hotkey refactor and so can't be ported back to 5.1.

The "footprint larger than screen" issue is being tracked here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1832986

[Piotr Gałka (piotrgalka)]

I could imagine that because of "footprints larger than screen" the behaviour depends on zoom (as I noticed). But it should be something like that - if footprint is very large (in current zoom) then is ignored.
If any such modifications were done than may be the only one big footprint was assumed and I have 3 big footprints (and no small footprints in that region) what confuses the algorithm.
What I see is:
- if they are big then PcbNew instead of may be ignoring them asks me which one,
- if they are smaller then one of them is used (always the same one).