Eeschema, least painful way of changing pin order per symbol instance

Question

I'm considering using Eeschema to create block diagrams. More or less just lots of abstract rectangles with ins and outs, interconnected. It will look like xcos/Simulink.

For better readability, I'd like to be able to disentangle the wiring by adjusting symbol's order of pins ad hoc. Strictly speaking, symbol instance's order of pins.

Example: swapping spontaneously VDD and GP3 of U6 on the snippet below, and maybe pushing GP5 up and GP4 down, but only of U6 and not all PIC_8_PINS; connected wires should remain connected (I'll have to move them around for a better appearance, of course).

Question: Cloning a symbol for every variant of appearance sounds like a hassle. Does anybody know a better way?

I'm currently using MS Visio where I can freely move pins around, but I want "something electrical" with nets and buses and smart highlighting instead of, well, just lines. This is a specific question about eeschema, though, thus here and not on softwarerecs.

Answer 1

In KiCad version 5, cloning each symbol that you want to modify is the only way to go. Otherwise, changing a library symbol will change all instances of that symbol on your schematic.

This is changed in KiCad version 6 (not released yet, currently nightly beta builds are available as v5.99). You can modify each instance of your symbol independently. You might want to try out KiCad version 6 to see if it works for your needs.