I'm still having trouble connecting pins easily - I think there could be a "snap to pins" option for eeschema that would make this very simple - my eyes are not maybe as good - or perhaps I should make the wires thicker? Because I have to try 4 or 5 times to get the wire to connect - so there is a square (accept on power parts - which I can see are connected when the wire is closed) to show that there is a node.
Initially I think part of the problem was that - and I am a total newby so sorry about this being so basic - but I had trouble understanding pin types - for example I thought Vcc would be a "power out" and would connect to other "power out" pins - but apparently the symbol Vcc (and GND) is a power in, and connects with a power out or passive, input, or output. The Vcc on a chip is apparently a PowerOut - or is this backwards? I searched for some standard list of pin types on the web and couldn't find anything. I understand the grid in the "check schematic" option which shows which pin types can connect with each other. Should the view be that in or out is from the perspective of connecting wires? Then, for example, I have terminals which I use for both inputs and outputs depending on the design - so perhaps I should create different parts - one Terminal_In and another Terminal_Out for the different pins. I thought I would just make them passive and all the warnings would be solved. But the main problem seems to be the difficulty in physically connecting the pins - one idea is to keep clicking around until you find that 1x1 pixel which will close the wire. I don't know how people have been doing it successfully for so many years - maybe it takes practice. Then I cannot get many nets to appear in the net list -are these created only by eeschema or can a person create and name a net? I guess the net names come from one of the pin names connected in the net? I did get the polygon making to work - it appears to be broken in the current version but is ok in the stable version. Possibly the mouse tracks are from Xwidgets? All together, I think kicad is ok to use for my projects - the last part I need to figure out is how to make the pins and polygon connect - and this is clearly by making the polygon have the same net as the pin 0 but the nets depend on making pin connections which I can't easily - but then I did make connections with a 7805 regulator (+24V, +5V, and GND) - but the nets do not appear in PCBNew - I think I realize now that I need to delete and readd the 7805 to PCBNew now to get new nets in the netlist to be recognized. I tried adding nets by hand but PCBNew does not appear to be importing new nets - because I deleted "GND" from the netlist - and it still appeared as the only net- as if the net list is cached and new changed ignored. Thanks - and I'm sure I can get over this last hurdle, Ted
