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Signex Wiki

Signex is an open-source, AI-first electronics design automation tool built in Rust. This wiki is the user guide — if you're looking for API docs or contributor onboarding, see CONTRIBUTING in the main repo.

Current version: v0.14.0 (2026-07-16) — the Footprint Editor release. Opening a .snxfpt now gives you an editable tab with a pad editor and a parametric 2D sketcher driven by a Newton / Levenberg–Marquardt constraint solver. v0.14 also adds multi-unit symbol parts, the signex-net netlist contract, and configurable keyboard-shortcut profiles. See Roadmap for what's coming next.

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New here? Start with these

1. Installation — Windows / macOS / Linux installers, or build from source
2. Quick Start — create or open a project and make your first edit in 5 minutes
3. Keyboard Shortcuts — two built-in profiles (Altium and Classic) plus an in-app editor

What Signex is

Signex edits its own native formats. A design lives in .snxprj (project), .snxsch (schematic), .snxsym (symbol), .snxfpt (footprint), .snxlib (library), and .snxpcb (PCB).

The document formats — .snxsch, .snxpcb, .snxsym, .snxfpt, .snxlib — all share one wire format: a TOML manifest wrapping TSV bulk blocks, line-diffable in git. A schematic or PCB is a single file, ~5× smaller than the equivalent JSON. A .snxlib is a file too, but it is the entry point of a library directory that also holds symbols/, footprints/, and sims/. The .snxprj project file keeps its own JSON format. See File Formats.

Coming from KiCad? Signex does not open or save .kicad_sch / .kicad_pcb / .kicad_pro files. Migration is one-way, through the optional signex-kicad-import companion tool — it converts a KiCad project into native .snx* files once, and you work in Signex from then on. See Migrating from KiCad.

The UI takes Altium Designer as its reference: the Active Bar, the docking model, the selection filter, and the default keyboard profile all follow Altium conventions.

What works today

Area	Guide
Native .snx* file formats	File Formats
Migrating a KiCad project	Migrating from KiCad
Selecting, moving, wiring	Schematic Editing
Wire / Bus / Label / Component placement	Placement Tools
Line / Rectangle / Circle / Arc / Polygon drawing	Placement Tools
Hierarchical sheets	Hierarchical Sheets
Net highlighting with colour	Net Color Pen
ERC validation (11 rule kinds)	ERC and Validation
Automatic component designation	Annotation
Editing two schematics at once	Multi-window Editing
Library Browser, Component Preview, symbol/footprint pickers	Library
Editing symbols, multi-unit parts	Symbol Editor
Editing footprints, pads, layers	Footprint Editor
Parametric sketching with constraints	Sketch Mode
Floating Altium-style toolbar	Active Bar
Property editing	Properties Panel
Built-in and custom themes	Themes
Docking, panels, tab undock	Docking and Panels
Selection modes & filter	Selection and Filter
Configurable shortcut profiles	Keyboard Shortcuts

Also shipped, without a wiki page yet: PDF export with bookmarks, BOM preview and CSV/HTML/XLSX export, netlist export, multi-project workspaces, and the command palette.

Not yet: the PCB editor. .snxpcb is a real format and PCB tabs open, but interactive PCB viewing and routing are v2.0 / v2.1 work — see Roadmap.

Stuck?

• FAQ / Troubleshooting — common questions and workarounds
• Issues — file a bug or feature request
• Discussions — ask a question or share a design

About Signex

• Apache-2.0 licensed, free forever (Community edition)
• Built on Iced 0.14 (Rust GUI) + wgpu (GPU rendering)
• Native .snx* document formats — TOML + TSV, line-diffable, git-friendly
• KiCad migration is one-way via the separately distributed, GPL-3.0-or-later signex-kicad-import tool; the main repo carries no KiCad-derived code
• Pro edition planned for v3.0 with Signal AI (Claude-powered design copilot) and real-time collaboration

See the README for the big-picture overview and screenshots.