There is some upcoming work to allow arbitrary colors instead of forcing you to choose from the options in that color dialog, which should make it easier to put together a color scheme that is easy on the eyes 
1 Like
@nquantum: maybe you want to join the discussion going on in “[Developer Feedback] Poll: layer manager”?
1 Like
@c4757p
Would it be a lot of work to change the background option from black/white only to a color button like the others for the next version, or is that ‘whatever color you want’ patch around the corner?
I mean, the field accepts the other colors, it’s kind of lame that one has to edit the settings file and can’t do it in the GUI like for the other elements…
PS: yeah I know, if the background becomes Red 3 or Green 2 either the wires or the symbol bodies won’t be visible anymore which is another can of support worms for us here.
Also true - when I set the background to black my labels vanished and I was a bit confused 
PPS: how do you intend to tackle this kind of problem anyway, proactive by forcing other element colors away from the background color or Darwinistic - the user will find out - eventually 
2 Likes
I think it would be slightly more than trivial (IIRC there are a few places that treat the background color as a boolean, because of course - might run into this if you force the background to blue with a file edit…), but not that bad - I definitely think it should be done, if colors in general become arbitrary.
2 Likes
windows:
C:\Users\YourNameHere\AppData\Roaming\kicad
1 Like
Manual edit eeschema file in kicad setting folder? In what file I can edit? I use windows version do I need to compile or just simple edit? If I can do that will be good enough.
I have try some schematic program eagle, diptrace, proteous, protel/altium. I like the yellow scheme of protel/altium the most. Next will be dark scheme of diptrace because even it black background but component and wire is bright and high contrast to background. Easy to distinguish.
Also I read topic of someone here:
There is pic of guy have grey background and magenta component and yellow wire. Like that a lot also! Don’t know what version of kicad is that. Don’t know how to change into that.
So it become someone taste on this color thing. So I think if there is a way to easy change color and also there is more scheme to choose like a set of color-scheme ready to choose more. Just like there is more windows theme to choose to suit for someone favorite and also can custom own color if none satisfy. This will be good.
Me for one I’m not good in art of color so that I try to ask idea if there is someone here already satisfy some color setting and please share? So maybe I found one better than black I’m using now.
Ps. I sleep 6-8hours a day and I like blue sky that not so sunny that cool my eye. That why I’ve sky&ocean on my wallpaper of pc
1 Like
Yes I will read and answer poll
You only need to edit the file for the background color as the color choices by the UI are limited to black/white as you already found out.
Close KiCAD (not just EEschema) before you make those changes.
And until KiCAD goes rainbow in some future you’re limited in colors what you can see in that color picker dialog unfortunately.
Might be interesting for others to see what you come up with for those settings down the road - don’t forget to post them here if you can.
PS: I don’t sleep enough and sometimes have problems with bright environments, that’s why I asked
PS: I don’t sleep enough and sometimes have problems with bright environments, that’s why I asked
Me too and I think we all do and get more tired easy on bright screen. Nowadays LCD display is more bright. I still think of find and app to reduce screen.
Already have try. Change background so far… still not satisfy. 
Still on the way to adjust and find some color setting that right (if someone satisfy with your own please share)
I like the program that dark theme they design for eyes health of longtime use in mind just like this.
(That reason why I hate office new 2017 they more on bright white background)
Great, we finally get user-selectable colors after I stop using schematics. 
Works in PCB too
Though for some reason I think the background in the PCB editor is not configurable. Hopefully that will change, it’s a strange disparity
I like the Solarized color scheme for schematic, but I’m going to have to really sit down and put some effort into designing one for PCB. It is not easy to pick a set of colors for that that are sufficiently different to let you distinguish eight copper layers and several mechanical, and simultaneously don’t look like ass…
1 Like
That …
was fast.
What else do you got up your sleeve? 
1 Like
lol, it wasn’t my work, and I wasn’t quite sure how far along it was as I hadn’t been following
Who do we have to thank then? 
PS: you know that this set’s a ‘bad’ example, right? Turn around time from new-user-posts-a-problem to what-problem-? was like 24 hours… 
1 Like
Jon Evans, relatively new guy. Not sure if he ever comes around here or what name he’d use.
Haha, yes, terrible example 
2 Likes
@c4757p I love that color scheme - although we now need to add a symbol that looks like a coffee stain, or an ink spill, or something. It would go perfectly.
1 Like
Look lovely! I like those. If component use same color but little bit darker will me low-key light on high-key light and might be more pretty but overall I like it!
Hope the theme to be select is more and can color custom adjust-able. So maybe we can see some color-full theme to choose and fun. 
Guys I’m seriously banging my head on the table while I’m trying to figure out how to change the colors in kicad.
For eeschema I’ve found out that there is a color picker thing and thats fine, but I’m lost on how to do the same thing for pcbnew. I’d really like to be sure that in order to change those colors I need to recompile kicad, as I’m not into compiling stuff…
@c4757p Could you share your settings file, with the Solarized palette theme enabled? That would really be a cool thing!
Thanks again to all,
Carlo