DEM remarks
- Good quality BOM generator
The current user interface is terrible. It requires to choose a file that provides an xsltproc plugin (if you know where to look for one). As far as I know, it can generate only .csv files.
A good candidate to fix the problem is Oliver Walters component table viewer.
Drop XSLT, switch to Python plugins? Be sure they are automatically detected, so all the user has to do is to pick the output format and settings.
- Default fields for new components
Currently there are a few default fields (name, value, footprint), so for each new component others have to be added manually (e.g. datasheet link, mounted, tolerance).
These fields should be used by the BOM generator.
A possible solution is to import .csv files with a list of pins and their properties. There are external tools that already exploit this approach.
- Assembly documentation
We should check with people responsible for assembling boards what kind of documentation do they expect. Alternatively we can open an EDMS project and see what files are stored in xxx-assy.zip archives.
This probably would require a converter or an export plugin in KiCad.
TODO: Check Tom's assembly drawings generator script.
- DRC
KiCad and Altium DRC capabilities are two different worlds at the moment. Unfortunately, it might be a long process to introduce more complex DRC rules in KiCad.
TODO: Make the list of the most important rules to implemented first.
- Editable pin table
Schematic library editor currently lists pins in read-only mode. It should be modified to enable changing the properties values.
- STEPs
Import and export. It might be already doable with KiCad, I need to check. Perhaps it requires a few hackish tricks that could be replaced with a nice UI.
- Selecting layers when importing DXF files Right now KiCad imports all DXF layers, which is not always convenient. Adding a listbox to select layers would significantly improve the importer functionality.