$KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR doesn't honor ~/ home directory shortcut on macOS

[Andy Peters]

On macOS Catalina with the 5.1.5rc2 (and possibly elsewhere, I have not tested), in the Configure Paths dialog from the Kicad Project Manager, EESchema doesn't like paths that start with the home-directory shortcut ~/, so for example, if you set KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR to

~/Library/Application Support/kicad/library (which on my machine exists)

and then you start to edit a schematic, you get a message box:

Library file "~/Library/Application Support/kicad/library/libname.lib not

for each library in your symbol library table. See attached. (Also note that the text of the message is getting cut off.)

If you change the environment variable back to a full path, such as

/Users/Andy/Library/Application Support/kicad/library

then things work as expected.

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

Incomplete interface strings already logged here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1850632

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

Please copy the full version information from About KiCad -> Copy Version Info.

[Andy Peters (devel-latke)]

Apologies ... here is the version info.

Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.5-rc1-10_14), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.64.1 SecureTransport (LibreSSL/2.8.3) zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.39.2
Platform: Mac OS X (Darwin 19.0.0 x86_64), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.69.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.54.0
    Compiler: Clang 9.0.0 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    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

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

Similar report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1819245

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/1829