Getting Started

Installation via package and content manager

IN PROGRESS

v6+ only

  1. Open kicad menu Tools > Plugin and Content Manager.

  2. Scroll down to kigadgets

  3. Double click. Apply transaction.

  4. You are done

Installation via PyPI

pip install kigadgets
python -m kigadgets

The second command links paths needed for headless scripts to find pcbnew and for GUI plugins to find python packages external to KiCad, including kigadgets. It does not need special privileges and will report everything it does to the command line. For more information on what the linker is doing, why, and advanced options, read more detail here.

Mac users: There is an extra step. Read about python on Mac here.

Try it out in GUI: Quit and reopen pcbnew application. Open its terminal, then run

pcb.add_circle((100, 100), 20, 'F.Silkscreen'); pcbnew.Refresh()

Try it out in headless mode: Download this repo to get the tests and run

pip install tests/requirements.txt
pytest tests

on MacOS, after doing the extra Mac step, run this instead

kipython -m pip install
kipython -m pytest tests