MultiChannel tool

[Rafał Pietrak]

Hi,

Recently I work a lot with multichannel tool. Regrettably I'm not well
acquainted with KiCAD C++ sources to put more concrete suggestions
regarding fixes, but:

1. the tool at the stage of mapping get confused for highly regular
schematics. See:
https://www.electric-sheep.eu/od7yHGVluwUSSOOjThJ1x2d7bde2bLklWunTL59MQ.mkv
(c.a. 11MB download)

1.1 the screencapture reflects missplacement of Q177 on ReadA zone with
respect to "reference" zone WriteA and it's equivalent Q1 there.

1.2 inside the "enable.kicad_sch" file, symbol Q1 contains "references"
Q177, but that's not taken into account when mapping zone contents for
placement copy.

2. I'd like to point out, that I WOULD expect (as I think other users of
MultiChannel tool would) the mapping process to correctly follow the
"references" as present on the schematic. This is because the
surrounding components have net-wires to a particular component within
the "rule zone" (as shown on screencapture).

2.1. So, the only alternative to have mapping based on "instaneces" as
present in *_sch, is to have mapping analyze surrounding components.
This will never be efficient.

3. I've also looked into the *.kicad_PCB files. The "zones" that are
saved there have no meaning for placement action. IMHO just two of those
fields really apply to layout repetition: name and placement. The
"references" from *sch are not copied there, so they may not be
available to PCB code/functions/methods.

Consequently I'd like to suggest:
A) that "instances" information of the *_sch get transferred to *_pcb
(both file and internal structures)
B) the user control of schematic based "zone generation tool" (currently
implemented as tick-boxes in that tool) get moved over from pcb editor
to sch editor and become available at command E (examine) of sub-sheet
as an additional "notebook" there (since sub-sheet examine panel is
already quite crowded).

I'd like to put my hands into implementing of that, but to do that I'll
need some guidance regarding files (to be) involved in A/B above.

Best regards,

-R
PS: please feel free to contact me directly if the list is not fully
interested in further discussion of the above.