Make custom pads editable without exploding and recombining (lp:#1808314)
Original report created by eelik (eelik)
In the report https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1775545 I wished for
WYSIWYG editing for rectangular (and round) pads. Together with that it
would also be nice to be able to edit custom shaped pads without first
exploding them and especially recombining them afterwards. It's quite
tedious to first explode, then edit, then select the shape and the pad and
then combine. This was especially difficult when I edited pads on different
layers: copper, mask and paste, each of them shaped a bit differently, on
top of each other. In that case I can't even select pads to be combined
with selection box; every time I have to use the clarification menu (and
unfortunately the great "highlight the hovered item" feature doesn't work
in Windows).
This could behave so that the pad would be kind of exploded automatically.
The anchor pad would stay where it is. It could prevent moving the zone
outlines outside the the anchor point. Or it would do the combining phase
automatically when the editing is over (the polygon is unselected) and give
the normal error message if the anchor point is outside the changed
polygon.
There are two alternative behaviors: 1. In implementation level the pad is
not actually exploded, the edges are just moved. 2. In implementation level
(and in visible level) the pad is actually exploded, but the connection
between the anchor pad and the graphic polygon is kept and they are
combined back together automatically when the polygon is deselected.
Custom pads in the copper layers can now be selected and moved like basic
pads. To keep it that way there could be a context menu action, like in the
bug #1775545. "Resize" or maybe "Edit in place". It would still lessen the
steps by removing the need to re-select and combine the items again and
again.
Maybe it could be possible to simply add automatic re-combining to the
current behavior. Even that would make the whole process of editing custom
pads easier.
Original tags: pcbnew