v1.0.0

1.0.0

Added

• KiCad Plugin and Content Manager package (#7). Each release now has
  KiPI-<version>-pcm.zip beside KiPI-<version>.zip. It holds the same files under
  plugins/, plus the PCM metadata and a 64 px icon, so KiPI can be installed and updated
  from KiCad's Plugin and Content Manager (or with Install from File… until it is
  listed). The release workflow builds it from the manual zip, checks it against the rules
  of KiCad's metadata repository, and attaches metadata.json, that version's entry with
  its sha256 and sizes, ready for the metadata repository. Release download counts in
  About now count the zips only.

• The plugin sets itself up on the first click (#7). KiCad used to install all of
  KiPI's packages (about 250 MB) in the background with nothing on screen, so the button
  took minutes to appear. Now requirements.txt is only kicad-python: the button appears
  within seconds, and the first click shows the setup window standalone KiPI has (every
  package with its size, PARDISO, Install), then installs into KiCad's plugin environment
  for KiPI with its own pip and opens KiPI. The window is wxPython, which KiCad's Python
  has (it has no Tk on Windows); else Tk; else the desktop's dialogs (osascript, zenity or
  kdialog); else it installs without asking. It runs in a process of its own, so wx never
  meets KiPI's Qt. A second click while it is open does nothing, and canceling leaves KiPI
  closed until the next click. An environment KiCad already filled is recorded as set up,
  without asking, and a new KiPI asks only if a requirement is not met. PARDISO is chosen
  in the setup window there, rather than in a dialog of its own.

• Standalone KiPI uses KiCad's plugin environment (#7). A KiPI in KiCad's plugin
  folders (installed by the Plugin and Content Manager, or copied into plugins) runs in
  the environment KiCad made for its plugin, installing what is missing there, rather than
  in a second one. It falls back to its own environment when KiCad has not made one, its
  Python is gone or unsupported; --own-env always uses its own, and --repair and
  --reset point at KiCad's Recreate Plugin Environment instead.

Changed

• KiPI is stable. The README no longer calls it alpha, and the minimum KiCad is now
  9.0.3, which the Plugin and Content Manager package requires. A manual install still
  runs on 9.0.0 to 9.0.2, with the limits the README lists.

Fixed

• Hidden footprint fields are no longer printed on the silkscreen when reading from the
  running KiCad. KiCad 9.0.1 on marks a hidden field on the field and leaves its text's
  flag set, and KiPI read either flag as shown, so it drew hidden fields too. On a board
  whose footprints hid long data fields on F.SilkS (nine of about 5,000 characters each),
  that was 400,000 extra strokes, and reading the silkscreen took minutes instead of about
  a second. Reading the board file was not affected.
• Reading a lot of silkscreen text from the running KiCad is fast. KiPI strokes each
  glyph's joined strokes as one path, reads KiCad's text strokes straight from its reply,
  and buffers them all at once: a board's text merges about three times faster. Past
  100,000 strokes on a side (some 3,000 designators), it leaves out the largest texts
  and says which, so even a board with megabytes of silkscreen text reads in seconds;
  the board above, with its hidden fields shown, reads in 6.5 s rather than about three
  minutes.

Closes #7.

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