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When I edit a PCB in CircuitMaker, I start laying out tracks on both upper and bottom layer. So far so good. Sometimes, I want to stop, and press Escape. Mostly this works, sometimes, I have to press twice, or three times.

When selecting an item, sometimes trace mode is still enabled, sometimes not.

But I had already twice in a few hours, that I cannot get out of a mode that keeps creating tracks. I cannot get even out of the black screen (see below). I cannot reach the menu, the left pane, or the window below. It just keeps scrolling.

Actually, as I'm writing this (using Alt-Tab I had to change application), it is still scrolling, and it will do so until I with TaskManager kill the application and lose (again) some work.

How can I get out of edit mode when the Escape key does not work?

(If I keep getting problems with CircuitMaker, my next question might be: how to convert a CircuitMaker to KiCad?.)

enter image description here

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Right-click on an empty area. Right-clicking is a sort of way to exit either placing a trace, or the currently selected tool in both CircuitMaker and Altium Designer.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ That doesn't work, it only switches between 'placing a via' mode and 'trace mode' ... scrolling keeps continuing when I want to get out of the PCB pane. Edit: it seems to work sometimes (1 out of 10 times) ... I hope I find a real solution, because this really makes working with CircuitMaker unbelievably cumbersome. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michel Keijzers
    Mar 31, 2020 at 22:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ It seems to work most of the time indeed, too bad my board is quite big and I have to scroll outside the edge to find an empty area (as the board itself is taken into account). \$\endgroup\$
    – Michel Keijzers
    Mar 31, 2020 at 22:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's definitely not the most responsive interface. I use CircuitMaker at home and Altium Designer at work. The former definitely feels less responsive, but I think intentionally so. \$\endgroup\$
    – JYelton
    Apr 1, 2020 at 2:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ Probably because it's internet based, if it would be a 'delay' it's just annoying, but (at least when I'm using it), it is not responding, so I have to click multiple times, and if I click once too often it starts an information window with results in some error etc. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michel Keijzers
    Apr 1, 2020 at 14:10
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In Altium Designer it is the right mouse button, but I'm not sure about CircuitMaker. They switched around a lot of the basic controls for no well-explained reason. The Esc key is always my go-to for cases like this - it is mostly universal and doesn't require clicking on just the right area with the mouse pointer.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I will try, but I'm almost sure I tried this already (since indeed is intuitive). \$\endgroup\$
    – Michel Keijzers
    Apr 1, 2020 at 14:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ At least if you hit it too many times it won't open up a new window. I often find myself hitting the escape key 3-5 times a go. Logically it's completely pointless to do this, but it minimizes the chance of a missed keystroke \$\endgroup\$
    – DerStrom8
    Apr 1, 2020 at 14:11

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