v1.0.0 release

[yaqwsx]

This is the first major release of KiKit ever. Since the initial draft, KiKit expanded a lot and it is much more capable than before.

Major changes in v1

• reworked CLI. KiKit offers a large number of parameters, so you can tune every last detail of your panel. This leads to hard-to-use command-line options. Therefore, we introduced a new CLI that groups the options into categories. Such UI can be also easily extended. It also allows you to save common patterns (e.g., mouse-bite styles) into files and reuse them. Read more in documentation.
• GUI for Pcbnew. We introduced action plugins. Therefore you can invoke some of the KiKit actions from Pcbnew GUI. Currently, you can
  • design a panel (see it in action) and
  • hide or show references based on regex.
  • more actions are planned, see Make Action Plugin for KiKit #12.
• automated DRC checking. Finally, with KiCAD 6 you can check if your board passes DRC in CI or before exporting gerbers for the manufacturer.
• reworked tab generating algorithm. Internally it is based on annotations. It is more robust and allows us to create various panel configurations. Read more in documentation.
• support for user-specified annotations. We introduced a custom schematic and footprint library that you can use to annotate the PCB (e.g., with tab positions) or board markings. This also allows us to simplify the multi-board setup - see documentation.
• support for KiCAD v6.
• support for Windows and macOS. With the changes in KiCAD's packaging in v6, we can finally support Windows and macOS. Note there are some problems with macOS, but they should be resolved soon (see v6 MacOS functionality and wxwidgets #252 for details).
• major speed improvement. KiKit is now nearly 2× faster.

Minor improvements

• we allow to specify more options for V-cuts (e.g., clearance)
• we allow to tangentially prolong mouse bites
• we allow the user to run a post-processing script
• support for OSHPark was introduced
• we support corner tabs
• we can make fillets and chamfers on panel frames.
• the docker images are now based on KiCAD 6.
• ...and a number of tiny improvements.

The journey towards KiKit v1 was quite long, but we finally made it. I hope it will serve you well and improve your workflow. If you find any bugs, please open an issue. If you struggle with usage or you have a feature proposal, you can open a question in discussions.

If you find KiKit useful and time-saving, consider becoming my GitHub sponsor.

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This discussion was created from the release v1.0.0 release.