automatic layout

[zakhar nasimov]

implement automatic part placement for pcbnew with the emphasis of shortest track length.

[Tomasz Wlostowski (twlostow)]

Zakhar,

I realize you are not a native English speaker, but your feature requests sound more like "do this, do that" orders than requests. Don't forget we're working here for the whole KiCad community and most of us do this in our spare time...

Tom

PS. I don't think anybody here has neither an idea nor the time to implement what you're asking for here ;-). The existing autoplacer (available in 5.1) attempts to minimize the track length. Go to Place->Autoplace if you want to try it out.

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

These are things which can be put far aside on a distant not yet made roadmap or discarded altogether to make kicad on par with other packages. I wasn't demanding anything.

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

That goes for any of the bugs I reported.

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Does the autoplacer suggested by tom fulfill your needs? (In other words play with current nightly and report back if this bug can be closed.)

If not make precise suggestions on what to do better. A generic "a want this far away feature with that catchy name" does not really help anyone. Detail usecases, define the feature set, ... (In other words: provide a way for developers to decide if your request is implemented successfully.)

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

Are the devs really not aware of such a layout feature on nearly all major cad packages or are they trying to make it seem this bug is all for my needs only.

[zakhar nasimov (thedocument)]

Perhaps my original description was not descriptive enough https://www.ema-eda.com/about/blog/stop-placing-components-hard-way I suppose there is more than shortest track length optimization.

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Why should a dev research how it is done if you want this. Again your feature request should contain all the information needed to see what is needed and be able to decide if it is implemented full.

Otherwise the bug report simply adds nothing to the discussion about kicad. I am sure devs would not be opposed to implement something that has a clear description of its specifications (in german: Lastenheft) and a clear description of the benefits to users. (And yes i am aware that this is a lot of work. But this is kind of a filter for developers. As long as there is no user prepared to properly write up this stuff then the feature probably has very low priority.)