Export Settings (Design Rules)

[Leandro Heck]

I would like to have a "export settings" button near the "import settings" button on Board Setup window on PCBNew. Exporting settings would be a good way to start creating this design settings. Right now, I don't know how should look the file to be imported to configure the design rules.

Application: kicad
Version: 5.1.2-f72e74a~84~ubuntu19.04.1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.64.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1b zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) libssh/0.8.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.36.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 5.0.0-13-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
    Boost: 1.67.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.64.0
    Compiler: GCC 8.3.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Leandro Heck (leoheck)]

Someone on Reddit told that it should import from another project, so why not to improve the "Import settings" text to something like "Import from another project"?

But I think a simple generic file, with a config item in each line, would be a better/simpler approach to make it easy to maintain.

[eelik (eelik)]

Admittidely it's impossible to know that it requires an existing project (.pro) file unless you find out by accident. Usually in software there's symmetrical import/export inside one software suite. But rather than making the implementation more complicated by having new files, why not just make the button text clearer, as Leandro said. "Import from project file".

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Marking as "Medium" only because this has come up several times. Changing the button label is a good idea.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@Wayne, this might be nice to have in 5.1.2, but it's definitely a string change. Let me know if you want it merged; otherwise I'll just leave it in 6.0.

[eelik (eelik)]

Thanks Jeff. Just a small enhancement proposal - tooltip texts are good when there's any ambiguity. The button text is now "Import Settings from Another Project..." which still leaves room for question about exporting or about how the settings have been saved. Tooltip could tell that, e.g. "Import board settings from a KiCad project file".

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

@Jeff, go ahead and cherry pick this into the 5.1 branch. Thanks!