Install and first impressions. Config-file related question.

[01tot10]

Hey all!

Just wanted to quickly write about my impressions after trying out the plugin for the first time. The documentation is so minimal I thought it wouldn't hurt to share experiences with others.

First of all - installation. I'm not used to working with virtual environments with Python so instead I wanted to see if I could do the usual pip user install thing and the answer is: yes, I can. So instead of doing the virtual environment thing I installed kiplot with:

pip3 install --user -e .

The --user flag is used to not mess up with your system python and instead install into user local.

After this, I did get errors running the pytest ( that I installed with pip3 install --user pytest ), but still later on found out that I'm able to run the program nevertheless and produce gerbers that are identical to the ones I exported straight from PCBNew.

To use the program, I used the example config-file that can be found from 'kiplot/docs/samples/' and modified it to my preferences. To run the program, I called it directly as instructed on the docu, so:

kiplot -b $(PCB) -c $(KIPLOT_CFG) -v

Works neatly, awesome!

Finally one question about the config. On the gerber export settings, there's a line to specify the setting for tented vias. In PCBNew, the setting is 'Do not tent vias [ ]'. With kiplot, the setting is 'tent_vias: [BOOLEAN]', so it's kind of a logical inversion of the PCBNew setting. This is the only place where I feel the kiplot setting seems to be inverted so just wanting to make sure. So do I think correctly that: 'Do not tent vias [ ]' would be the same as 'tent_vias: true' and 'Do not tent vias [X]' would be the same as 'tent_vias: false'

Thanks for the great work on the plugin for the makers! I'm sure this will improve my workflow working with KiCad. I'm especially excited that I can export all the gerbers and drill files with a single command line command instead of the 6-10 clicks it would normally need!

[set-soft]

With kiplot, the setting is 'tent_vias: [BOOLEAN]', so it's kind of a logical inversion of the PCBNew setting. This is the only place where I feel the kiplot setting seems to be inverted so just wanting to make sure.

tent vias means to cover them. When tent_vias is false the vias are drawn on the mask layer. Usually you cover the vias with solder mask and they aren't accessible, this is "tent_vias: true" If you need to electrically access your vias (not covered by the solder mask) use "tent_vias: false"

So, yes, is inverted.