KiCAD Replicate Layout Plugin (KiCad 10 fork)

[!NOTE] This is a community-maintained fork of MitjaNemec/ReplicateLayout, updated to work with KiCad 10. The original author retired the plugin at KiCad 10 (KiCad now ships native multichannel layout), so this fork keeps it running for hierarchical-sheet driven replication. All credit for the plugin goes to doc.dr. Mitja Nemec; it remains GPL-2.0.

Changes in this fork:

• KiCad 10 support (issue #87): KiCad 10 removed pcbnew.ID_V_TOOLBAR, which the dialog used for positioning, so the plugin raised on every run. Fixed with a fallback that still works on KiCad 9.
• Grouped-destination crash (issue #86): the destination-group precheck compared a PCB_GROUP object to a string and aborted whenever a destination footprint was already grouped. Fixed.
• A working, headless test-suite (the upstream one referenced absent folders) that verifies geometric correctness and byte-for-byte parity with KiCad 9.

The replication core is unchanged — verified to reproduce the KiCad 9 behaviour exactly (see Testing).

The repository includes code for KiCad Action plugin which replicates part of the PCB layout.

Replicate the PCB layout of one hierarchical sheet to other hierarchical sheets. This replication is based upon hierarchical sheets in Eeschema. The basic requirement for replication is that the section to be replicated (source) is completely contained within a single hierarchical sheet, and replicated sections (destination) are just copies of the same sheet. Complex hierarchies are supported and the replicated sheet can contain subsheets. The plugin replicates footprints, zones, tracks, text and drawings.

After the section for replication (source section) has been laid out (footprints, tracks, text objects and zones placed) you need to:

1. Place the anchor footprints for the destination sections you want to replicate. This defines the position and orientation of replicated sections. You can use the PlaceFootprints action plugin for this.
2. Select the same anchor footprint within the source section.
3. Run the plugin.
4. Choose which hierarchical level you wish to replicate.
5. Select which sheets you want to replicate (default is all of them).