Grid enhancements

[richardneill]

When doing a layout, I find myself very very frequently switching between 100 mil, 50 mil, 25 mil and 5 mil grids.
The first 2 are for component placement, 25 mil is for fine track routing (eg between DIL pins), and 5 mil is for text alignment (eg correctly aligning '100k' to fit within a resistor body). Here are some feature suggestions that would make this easier:

1. Log scale for Grid changes:
 Make G/Shift-G logarithmic. Generally, I don't want to use the step size of +/- 5 mil, I want to double or halve the grid pitch. (in fact, if part of my
 layout is at 100 mil pitch, the very existence of 105 mil grids is asking for a problem.). As it stands, I sometimes have to press 'g' 10 times - this isn't very accelerated! My proposal would be that G should cycle between certain pre-selected pitches (via preferences). Mine would be:
    0 - 5 - 10 -25 -50 - 100

2. In 25 mil grid, make the more "important" grid dots slightly different colours (or sizes) to make it easier to see which ones are on the 100 mil grid. This would be similar to graph paper (where the 1cm lines are bolder than the 2mm lines)
Rationale: when I'm working at a fine pitch (eg routing tracks between DIL pins), I still want most items to be aligned with the master 100 mil grid, rather than on a 100 mil spacing that is 25 mil offset.

3. Add accelerator to disable the grid entirely (allowing free placement of text). Suggest Ctrl-Shift-G to toggle it on and off.

4. If grid is entirely off, each click of the the arrow-keys moves a selected object by zero distance. This is correct and consistent, but not useful. Suggest
that the arrow keys should still move by 1 mil.

Thanks very much :-)