.pretty files

[Michael Kraft]

This is a true design flaw: I need to be online to have access to the .pretty footprints? That is not acceptable.
For security reasons I cannot work on an online PC and I am sure this describes quite a lot of professionals. Please make KiCad a professional tool by providing a way to download and install all current .pretty files in form of e.g. a zip, or similar. Downloading them one by one from github - thanks, but no thanks, it´s wasting too much of time.

[xzcvczx (xzcvczx)]

Well your bug report was very helpful yet useless. What platform are you on, as both osx and many linux package managers provide easy ways to do this.

[Jon Neal (reportingsjr)]

You can download the footprints here: http://downloads.kicad-pcb.org/libraries/

[Chris Pavlina (pavlina-chris)]

There is the library-repos-install script in the source:

Linux/OSX: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror/master/scripts/library-repos-install.sh
Windows: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror/master/scripts/library-repos-install.bat

Perhaps we should look at making this simpler.

[Adam Wolf (adamwolf)]

On OS X, I provide an -extras package (with documentation) so folks can easily work offline. It has been this way since the first OS X package.

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

This is completely false. There is *nothing* forcing you to use the online github footprint libraries. A quick Google search, a simple question asked in the KiCad forum, or reading the KiCad documentation would have gotten you the answer you are looking for without having to create an invalid bug report.

[Novak Tamas (novak-7)]

@Wayne I remember the (not so old) times when I was new to KiCad, and have found any of the forum or the bugreport sites, having not known the others exist.

It should be highlited / better communicated at the head of the bug report site, that the place for dunno-how questions is rather https://forum.kicad.info/

At https://launchpad.net/kicad the list of useful links lacks https://forum.kicad.info/

At https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad no any such info on the head.

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

There is a link to the user forum on the KiCad website. All of the
useful links for users are on the developers website on LP also has most
of the important links. The first time a user creates a bug report,
they should see the following (at least that is how I have the bug
reporting set up):

"
Start by reading the "How to file a bug report" FAQ at
https://answers.launchpad.net/kicad/+faq/1108.

The single most important step is to paste the version information from
KiCad into your bug report. This is accomplished by selecting the
Help->Copy Version Information main menu entry in the main window where
the bug is occurring. This includes most of the information about you
build of KiCad. Please note that as of version r6617 of the product
branch, the copy version information to clipboard feature has been moved
to the about dialog.

Please attach a sample file and specify the step by step operation
needed to reproduce a reported bug if it is relevant.

The bug squad will set the importance status of your report. The
project has guidelines for the importance of bug reports and should not
be changed by the bug reporter.

The bug squad will set the status of your bug report. Do not change the
status even if the bug was not properly fixed. The bug squad will
review any comments and update the status accordingly.

Please respect the one bug per bug report request. It is impossible to
close multiple bugs in a single report. Launchpad's bug tracker is not
designed to handle multiple bugs.
"

I don't know how to make things any easier for users. If you have a
better solution let me know.

On 8/6/2016 6:44 AM, Novak Tamas wrote:
> @Wayne I remember the (not so old) times when I was new to KiCad, and
> have found any of the forum or the bugreport sites, having not known the
> others exist.
>
> It should be highlited / better communicated at the head of the bug
> report site, that the place for dunno-how questions is rather
> https://forum.kicad.info/
>
> At https://launchpad.net/kicad the list of useful links lacks
> https://forum.kicad.info/
>
> At https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad no any such info on the head.
>