[sdiy] Eagle for PCB Layout

[Jay Schwichtenberg]

To me every PCB program I've used has had some issues. Everything from just funky operation to the libraries that are used don't match the way I work.

It's sort of like politics where you pick the lesser of the evils. I finally just decided to go with KiCAD and deal with it.

But here's something that has helped me be more efficient in using a lot of programs. Remap and use the hot keys. Normally the packages come with the keys that are mapped to something that makes sense logically. For example: E for edit, V for value, F for footprint and so on. But with the keys all over the keyboard you're using both hands and moving a hand off the mouse a lot of time. Since I use a left hand mouse I take the keys: U I O P and J K L ; and M , . / and remap those to the most common functions I use. KiCAD only can map ASCII characters, it would be nice to use key codes so you could use the keypad and cursor keys as separate keys.

Jay S.