This is a simple and to me obvious idea, but I can’t find any mention of it.
When I build up a breadboard and then look at the PCB view, the parts are all over the place apparently randomly. Could there be a way to lay them out as they are in the breadboard? Obviously parts can change later when routing traces, but it would save a lot of finding parts and moving them around when starting a new PCB.
At present the parts are placed at random in all three views. You need to move them in to an appropriate position. The code has no way of knowing where they should be placed, that is up to the human.
Peter
But the code does have an idea where they should go, if you’re starting out by placing them on a breadboard you have a physical layout. It might not be the best for a PCB, but it’s a lot better starting point for a PCB than a random layout. I’ll raise an enhancement issue.
That would be the correct thing to do. I expect there will be resistance because it is going to be a difficult change code wise, but try it and see.
Peter
I’ve written a standalone program to read the coordinates from the breadboard view and copy them to the PCB view. It’s a work in progress.
Head over to the issue on github to see pictures of its results. It’s a fair bit less messy than the random placement, but there are still some origin issues with some parts. I’m sure I have not fully understood what the XML is doing yet.