Suggestion: use symbol defined position of refdes and value if symbol not rotated in schematic

[Rene Poeschl]

Right now kicad always auto places the reference and value field unless a setting is deactivated. The auto placement is quite useful if a symbol is rotated or mirrored in the schematic. For complex parts especially ones with pins on all 4 sides the auto placement does not result in a satisfactory result. The user can place the fields for such a symbol using the symbol editor so why not use that information.

My suggestion therefore: Use the libary defined positions for these fields when placing the symbol in the same orientation as the library (0 rotation, not mirrored)

Exception: multi unit symbols that have different units (have the "not interchangable" flag set). These should always auto place as there is no way to define field positions differently per unit (if this is introduced to v6 then we can tread them the same way as i suggest for normal symbols)

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Related: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1682496

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

Isn't this achieved by disabling "Automatically place symbol fields" in Preferences > Eeschema > Editing Options. Otherwise this sounds like a duplicate of lp:1682496.

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

That one turns it always off. Even while rotating which might not be ideal. (It also turns it off for multi unit symbols.)
So no that setting does not at all fulfil what i request.

[Michael Kavanagh (michaelkavanagh)]

This is more useful as a comment to the original "improve auto place heuristic" Wishlist item. I don't see any actionable task in this bug report which warrants a separate report from the duplicate.