I’ve placed some documentation text in a User Comments layer.
When I use the “Flip Board View” the position of the text changes.
Note, I do not expect the text itself to be flipped, as this is not a ‘fabrication’ layer. I want it to still be readable.
But, I did expect it to be positioned at the same location.
In the attached screenshots, the yellow triangle is drawn on the edge-cuts layer. The text elements are in the User.Comments layer and are positioned at the vertices of the triangle, with alignment properties as indicated.
In the flipped view:
The left-aligned text appears right-aligned, which arguably makes some sense, though I’d personally prefer it to still be left-aligned
But the center and right-aligned samples are shifted.
Is this a bug? Or is there some rationale for this behavior?
It seems to me, that ithas something to do with text alignment.
Left-aligned seems to work better than center aligned. But still, there might be a bug.
I think it’s a bug. Logically it should work as if the bounding box of the text item is first flipped and then the text is rendered again with original settings – although the “then” part may be a matter of opinion: someone may want to flip the left/right justification.
Does this mean that if I want to draw some dimensions I should do it only at paired layers?
To specify dimensions I was always using Dwgs.User layer (it is non-paired I think).
If thanks to this my dimensions are not tied to the board than which layer pair were expected to be used for it (I’m still in V8)?
Which means that those texts are in a non-manufactured layer, i.e. they aren’t part of the manufactured board, not “tied to the board”. When the board view is flipped, the actual board items and anything which refers to them – like dimensions and arrows – must be mirrored in the view. But texts which aren’t in paired layers should be mirrored only as bounding box, and the characters (glyphs) or their order shouldn’t be mirrored. The texts should be normally readable without a mirror.
In the paired layers, also the actual text should be mirrored because they somehow belong to front and back of the board (at least that’s how I understand their function and reason for existence).
But dimension also contains some text (number + units)
Should it be flipped or not?
In Protel I was using one of user graph layers to prepare texts + graph and then send it to PCB manufacturer instead of silkscreen layer to be printed at PCB.
I assumed that in KiCad I can use any layer in this way. So I assumed that all layers are ‘tied to the board’. I’m surprised reading that it is not so.
Fo example my PCB bottom layer will be end-user-visible. There are some terminal blocks. Instead of typical silk-layer graphics like rectangles and references I’ d like to write there some information for end user so I use for it some of available layers (to then send it instead of silk layer). To make text readable for the user I know that I have to mirror it during designing PCB (as it will be at bottom layer).
Now when I then “Flip Board View” to see how my texts will look I would expect seeing them correct (not mirrored).
But now I aderstand that I can’t be sure of it.
For me all layers should be assumed being ‘tied to the board’. If not than it should be user decision which of layers are not ‘tied’.
In my opinion, All texts on the PCB (Silk, copper, etc) should be mirrored when the view is flipped, but text on user layers should not be mirrored and kept readable. But this is debatable. Take for example an import of a front panel to be used as a reference. In such a case you would expect texts on the front panel to be mirrored when the view is flipped. Making it user configurable (on a layer basis, or text string basis) also adds complexity.
But I do tend to agree with mkeveney’s suspicion of a bug. Regardless of whether text gets mirrored when the PCB is flipped. the bounding box of the text should stay in the same location.
I also noticed that the checkbox PCB Editor / Preferences / Preferences / PCB Editor / Editing Options / [ ] Flip board items left/right (default is top/bottom) does not work for me.
