been playing catchup on putting in work on #KiConnect, rounding out some major changes in the geometry syncing.
Starting a board outline from FreeCAD now works and when I left off last night it look like there is only 1 bug left before this gets merged into development.
After that, Parts doesn't require much more work, mostly just applying the same board offset/translation changes as Board/BoardSketch.
whoot. #KiConnect development is moving to support #FreeCAD 1.1 and #KiCAD 10.
At release time I'm unsure if I'll be able to support #KiCAD 9, I suspect there is going to be 1 or 2 missing features that are unlikely to get back ported. Hopefully workaround can be figured out.
weeee. #KiConnect has... new button(s)!
I've broken create project and create board apart, this is to facilitate starting a board completely from FreeCAD.
Working on a bunch of other small niceties, like currently active project.
heck! yeas! I just cracked a major nut that has been a block for not only #KiConnect but nearly all #FreeCAD addons I've attempted.
Finally got a `Part::FeaturePython` to act like an `App::Part`. ie; something that can hold other bodies and move them around, maintaining there relative positions. And! it happens real-time, not 'finish the move' then everything realigns, which is the best I've achieved so far.
Pushed some quick fixes I did on the flight home from #FOSDEM.
I've got some work planned for the next ~1.5 week but I'm going to keep the stream on hold, until at least next week at least. schedule getting mixed up again in march. When I resume it will likely be early (UTC-8) wed.
So far all my work has been under the assumption #KiCAD is running. This week I'm going to start work on KiConnect from scratch.
heeeey! my talk is up.
https://video.fosdem.org/2026/h1309/JAH78J-kiconnect-one-year.av1.webm
Stream time! Going to be working on #KiConnect in about 30 minutes. More deep diving into #FreeCAD Workbench development. Join me!
Morgan hacking on software, electronics or wood/CNC. FreeCAD, ESP32s, LinuxCNC
oh hey. going to start streaming in about 30min.
Today! Getting full into my @FreeCAD Project Association grant working on #KiConnect. It'll probably start off with some admin-y type stuff, I'm playing catchup from starting a new job, new year shenanigans, and being sick (ugh, again).
Morgan hacking on software, electronics or wood/CNC. FreeCAD, ESP32s, LinuxCNC
OOOkkee, now that I have my weekly schedule a bit more settled....
This week I'm going to start work on my @FreeCAD Project Association grant. I was awarded a grant to commit 100 hours of work on #KiConnect PCB Workbench.
As part of my proposal I wanted to get back to live streaming, in part it's good motivation and routine, and give people a chance to see what FC workbench development looks like.
To start I'm going to work on Thur at 0900 (UTC-8) and see how that goes.
oh hey, I wrote a thing.
2025 semi-wrap and 2026 plans.
now with ~90+% less profanity!
Huge thanks to @concretedog for some much needed encouragement last year and the @FreeCAD Project Association for the grant to work on #KiConnect and including me in FOSDEM! see ya all in a couple weeks.
Welp, 2025 was pretty awful. From an American prospective, a bunch of idiots thought to themselves, “I guess I can accept a little fascism, as long as my property taxes don’t go up.” And then the other half of the country voted for it with enthusiasm. Now the entire world is in disarray and I’m constantly thinking, what’s the point. *sigh* moving on… What actually went well in 2025…. KiCON US One thing that did go well was my third attempt at a KiCAD workbench for FreeCAD. I tried this once with KiCadStepUp as the basis but as it was too monolithic I had trouble hooking into it to use as an API. My second attempt used the KiCADs SWIG bindings. This went decently well but a conversation with Wayne, project lead for KiCAD I figured I should wait for KiCAD v9 and use its new long term API. I started this project late 2024 and spent most of January hammering on a prototype that I was satisfied with. This became KiConnect
morgan