A colleague recently asked me to check some details of an older PCB revision of a current design, so I pulled the “kicad_pcb” file out of the ZIP of the older revision and double-clicked to open it with “KiCad PCB Editor (standalone)”.
What surprised me was that all the ‘Layer’ colours were as expected, but none of the ‘Objects’ or ‘Nets’ retained their previous settings.
For example, I have set the “Tracks” opacity in the “Objects” tab to about 80%, and it seems to carry between projects. However, in “standalone” it is reset to 100%. Same with the other opacity settings - they all return to what seems to be their ‘initial kicad startup’ settings.
I could deal with that.
What I have trouble with is the “Nets”. I’ve coloured several of my nets so I can identify them very easily. For example, I colour GND green, +5 as red and +3 as orange. When I set the ‘net display options’ to ‘all’, it is very easy to identify, for example, what leg of a bypass cap is ground and whether the other end is +24, +12, +5, +3 or something else. Makes debugging SO easy.
However, when opened standalone, all net colours revert to blank (no colour).
So, where is this information stored?
It doesn’t carry over from one project to another (like the layers do), and I can’t see any obvious file relating to the PCB where it is stored. It does not make sense to store it in a global config file like the layer colours as it would change from project to project. It should be stored in the PCB file… but obviously isn’t.
You need the project file (kicad_pro) along with the kicad_pcb. It’s more than just appearance settings that you will lose if you don’t include the project file: you’ll also lose design rules, netclass assignments, etc.
KiCad has two different modes. When you first open the project file and then the schematic or PCB, it works in “Project mode”. In Project mode there is a connection between the Schematic Symbols and the PCB footprints and this is the normal way to use KiCad.
If you do not open the project file first, but directly open a schematic in the schematic editor, or a PCB in the pcb editor, then KiCad operates in “Standalone” mode. In Standalone mode, there is no connection between the schematic and the PCB at all, but it also unlocks some extra features. You can for example use it to append the contents of another PCB to make a panel with multiple PCB’s.
@craftyjon
I didn’t realise the project file holds some extra goodies that aren’t in either the schematic or PCB (like net colours).
@paulvdh
I knew there was a difference between the project & standalone versions - I used the standalone some while back to try and import an old altium design. Unfortunately I had no luck.
@both
To get the extra ‘eye candy’ the full ZIP will require extraction (no problem, just didn’t realise I’d have to) and then navigate to it from the project browser. Easy fix.
Many thanks to you both for taking the time to answer.
Note that this is not required. While you do need to have the project file present (next to the kicad_pcb file), you don’t need to navigate to the PCB via the project browser in order to have the project file loaded. You can open the PCB editor standalone and still get all the appearance and design rule settings – the only thing that will be different is the link to the schematic editor.
@craftyjon
Thanks for the tip. That procedure worked great (placing the .kicad_pcb & .kicad_pro files in the same folder, and then opening the PCB standalone).
Saved much untidy mucking around.
