Footprint name lengths are limited in Footprint editor tree

[Aleksandr Sh]

Previously, I could've told most of a component parameters by looking at its name. Now, the name is trimmed and the rest of the space is filled with description. So now, just to determine a capacitor diameter or TE_MATE-N-LOK_1 pin count, I have to either increase the tree width to more than half of my screen or open every component. Moreover the description sometimes doesn't even tell the row count in a connector and the name column cannot be resized.

I don't think the description column is useful as most of component info is already in the name thanks to naming conventions.

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.0-rc1-27-g03e787ef2), 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 8 (build 9200), 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

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision a74aa3850a394d5bdd18bf4d4b26a8681bb09702
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=a74aa3850a394d5bdd18bf4d4b26a8681bb09702

[Scott M (nikolx)]

See attached .gif. Auto-width appears to not go quite wide enough. Using build after the original fix.
Windows 10 latest, standard fonts, 1080p monitor.

--------------------------------------------------

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.0-rc1-42-ga246d905f), 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 8 (build 9200), 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 7.3.0 with C++ ABI 1011

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

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

Wow, that looks awful. I've pushed an update that hopefully fixes this but I don't have an MSW machine to test it with. Would you take a look and see if it works better for you now (should be in tonight's nightly)?

If possible, can you check with alternative system fonts as well? Hopefully it works for all cases.

[Scott M (nikolx)]

Seth, thanks for the quick fix, it looks good now on the latest nightly.

I tried with Windows scaling at 100% and 150% (though 150% just blurrily scales up the window), and both appeared good.

I didn't realize until now, but changing Windows 10 default font looks like it requires registry changes. I'm guessing changing the system font this way isn't something people commonly do, nor should be required to be designed for in KiCad. I can't speak to older versions of Windows, however.