KiPI
A tool for downloading and installing kiCad packages, primarily for KiCad v5.
Runs on Windows, should run on Linux (MacOs might also work).
Description
Currently supports footprints, symbols and templates. Configurations for KiCad official v5 libraries and templates, SparkFun, DigiKey and Walter Lain libraries.
Typically where available, point releases are downloaded as a zip file. Otherwise, latest versions of git repositories can be cloned locally.
This script can use git to:
- Clone a repository if you don't have it
- Pull the latest repository if you already have it locally (does an update).
Content types:
- Footprints can be installed to fp-lib-table.
- Symbols can be installed to sym-lib-table.
- Templates are copied to ~/Documents/kicad/templates
- 3dmodels are copied to ${KISYS3DMOD}
- Scripts are copied to ${APPDATA}/kicad/scripting
Existing xx-lib-table will be saved to xx-lib-table-old.
Usage
kipi [options] <package spec> [<version>]
Package spec contains the packages to download/install. Version is a valid version from the package file or "latest".
Options are:
| -h, --help | shows a help screen on the command line |
| -v, --verbose | show verbose messages |
| -q, --quiet | don't show logging |
| -t, --test | dry run, don't perform actions |
| --config <local folder> | |
| Â | configure kipi. The local folder is the folder you want all your local data put in. |
| --download | download package data only |
| --install | install package data into KiCad (implies download) |
| --list | list installed packages |
| --remove | remove an installed package from KiCad |
| --update | update installed packages |
Example Usage
kipi --config c:\kicad_data
kipi -v --install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bobc/kicad-getlibs/master/packages/kicad-official-libraries-v5-no-3d.yml
Dependencies
- You need to have git installed to clone/update local git repositories.
Otherwise it should just run with a standard distribution of python 2.x, there are no special libraries used.
Bugs/Feature Requests
Please raise issue on github.
Credits
KiPI is derived from project https://github.com/hairymnstr/kicad-getlibs.
Content Types
| Content type | Kicad v4 | KiCad v5 |
|---|---|---|
| footprint | Yes | Yes |
| symbol | No | Yes |
| 3dmodel | Yes* | Yes* |
| template | Yes | Yes |
| script | No | Yes |
Footprint
Footprints are installed in global fp-lib-table.
Symbol
- [v5] Symbols are installed in global sym-lib-table.
- [v4] Installing symbols is not supported because sym-lib-table is not supported in v4
3dmodel
3dmodels can be installed if KISYS3DMOD is a writable location by user and does not require admin permissions. On Windows the default path c:\program files\... is not writable, so the user must re-configure KISYS3DMOD to writable location, e.g "C:\kicad_data\3dmodels"
Template
Templates are installed to user's templates folder.
Script
Scripts may be pcbnew scripts or footprints wizards.
- [v5] Scripts are copied to global kicad/scripting folder.
- [v4] May work on Linux but does not work on Windows since v4 does not have a search path for user scripts.
