Hello, everyone.
I’ve been using KiCad for about 1 week, and the default colors were beginning to burn my eyes. After a peak at the source, i find that the colors are hard-coded.
/kicad-source-mirror/blob/master/common/colors.cpp
const StructColors g_ColorRefs[NBCOLORS] =
{
{ 0, 0, 0, BLACK, _HKI( “Black” ), DARKDARKGRAY },
{ 72, 72, 72, DARKDARKGRAY, _HKI( “Gray 1” ), DARKGRAY },
{ 132, 132, 132, DARKGRAY, _HKI( “Gray 2” ), LIGHTGRAY },
{ 194, 194, 194, LIGHTGRAY, _HKI( “Gray 3” ), WHITE },
{ 255, 255, 255, WHITE, _HKI( “White” ), WHITE },
{ 194, 255, 255, LIGHTYELLOW, _HKI( “L.Yellow” ), WHITE },
{ 72, 0, 0, DARKBLUE, _HKI( “Blue 1” ), BLUE },
{ 0, 72, 0, DARKGREEN, _HKI( “Green 1” ), GREEN },
{ 72, 72, 0, DARKCYAN, _HKI( “Cyan 1” ), CYAN },
{ 0, 0, 72, DARKRED, _HKI( “Red 1” ), RED },
{ 72, 0, 72, DARKMAGENTA, _HKI( “Magenta 1” ), MAGENTA },
{ 0, 72, 72, DARKBROWN, _HKI( “Brown 1” ), BROWN },
{ 132, 0, 0, BLUE, _HKI( “Blue 2” ), LIGHTBLUE },
{ 0, 132, 0, GREEN, _HKI( “Green 2” ), LIGHTGREEN },
{ 132, 132, 0, CYAN, _HKI( “Cyan 2” ), LIGHTCYAN },
{ 0, 0, 132, RED, _HKI( “Red 2” ), LIGHTRED },
{ 132, 0, 132, MAGENTA, _HKI( “Magenta 2” ), LIGHTMAGENTA },
{ 0, 132, 132, BROWN, _HKI( “Brown 2” ), YELLOW },
{ 194, 0, 0, LIGHTBLUE, _HKI( “Blue 3” ), PUREBLUE, },
{ 0, 194, 0, LIGHTGREEN, _HKI( “Green 3” ), PUREGREEN },
{ 194, 194, 0, LIGHTCYAN, _HKI( “Cyan 3” ), PURECYAN },
{ 0, 0, 194, LIGHTRED, _HKI( “Red 3” ), PURERED },
{ 194, 0, 194, LIGHTMAGENTA, _HKI( “Magenta 3” ), PUREMAGENTA },
{ 0, 194, 194, YELLOW, _HKI( “Yellow 3” ), PUREYELLOW },
{ 255, 0, 0, PUREBLUE, _HKI( “Blue 4” ), WHITE },
{ 0, 255, 0, PUREGREEN, _HKI( “Green 4” ), WHITE },
{ 255, 255, 0, PURECYAN, _HKI( “Cyan 4” ), WHITE },
{ 0, 0, 255, PURERED, _HKI( “Red 4” ), WHITE },
{ 255, 0, 255, PUREMAGENTA, _HKI( “Magenta 4” ), WHITE },
{ 0, 255, 255, PUREYELLOW, _HKI( “Yellow 4” ), WHITE },
};
Anyways, I am lazy, and I couldn’t get my build environment set up to implement my own solution. plus, i knew exactly what I wanted to change, THE COLORS! i didn’t want to learn whatever the ■■■■ was being used to draw on the screen (I have plenty of other shit to do). It should literally be as easy as choosing your own colors… how is this NOT a feature yet?
To change colors you need to get a hex editor, go to your local KiCad directory, and inside of the bin directory you will find a bunch .kiface files, one for each sub-program in KiCad, pretty much. MAKE COPIES OF THE ORIGINALS. The colors are compiled into each of these files. Just do a search for “C200C2” which is hex for that horrible magenta color. It should be pretty easy to spot the colors, the colors are comprised of only these hex numbers in RGB format: 00, 48, 84, C2, and FF. Just change the colors to whatever you want.
Here’s my original eeschema.kiface file (with highlighted color data), and then there’s my color scheme (after I made my edits):
CAVEAT: There’s some magic going on and the colors are being shifted to something close, not sure why but I have a color scheme I’m happy with so I don’t care.