A via is a via. For purposes of rendering, I don’t think we need to discriminate based on race, religion, pedigree, etc.
I do occasionally use this. It may be more useful to render ONLY the non-plated holes.
Yeah - what is this supposed to do?
Occasionally useful when trying to display ONLY some limited items, but the default color scheme makes the Anchors difficult to see under ANY circumstances.
I use these options. They might be even more useful if they were further subdivided to “Render/Visible Values” and “Render/Hidden Values”; and “Render/Visible References” and “Render/Hidden References”
I don’t have this in my year-old nightly build. Is it something coming in ver 5.0?
I generally don’t mind a few duplications like this. My suggestion would be to expand functionality of the left toolbar icon, so you could alter grid pitch as well as toggle grid visibility.
mostly I like the way of behavior of pcbnew.
3) If I deselect “Footprints Back” then the Pads of SMT components will be invisible, too. I don’t know, if this is the correct behavior.
For the Layers it would be a nice feature to create a few sets of personal Layers, that are then fast selectable with its name with a right click.
Yes very handy feature. If SMD front and back pads were the same color that would be very confusing. I find it helpful to have the pads a different color from the copper color, but similar (so settable independently I find is great).
I havent because I didnt realise it was there, but will definitely be using it for quick copper reviews before checking the gerbers. Two check boxes or one is fine with me.
1 Pads should be the same color as the copper layer, that would be intuitive
2 Don’t use it
3 Use it but it is not quick
There is one feature that I’ve been trying to get developers to implement with no success. It would be fantastic to be able to cycle through all physical layers (or at least to switch between top and bottom layer) with a single keyboard shortcut. I constantly run into situations when I just want to see a single layer with nothing else visible (only objects visible that pertain to the top, bottom layers or internal copper layers). Let’s say that I want to see just the the objects on the top layer. To achieve that you have to do the following:
Switch to the Layer tab
Deselect the B.Cu layer
Deselect the B.Silk layer
Deselect the B.Fab layer
Deselect the Eco2.User layer
Select the F.Cu layer
Select the F.Silk layer
Select the F.Fab layer
Select the Eco1.User layer
Switch to the Render tab
Deselect Footprints Back
Select Footprints Front
It gets old quickly when you have to swap lets say between top and bottom several times. I do use high contrast mode, but very often in a busy layout with multiple layers you just need the ability to swap between single “layers” and see only what belongs to that layer. I did file a feature/bug report forever ago, but nothing was done in that regard. If you can implement something like that, I would be eternally grateful!
At least in the nightly builds you can use the context menu on the Layer manager and select “Show All Front Layers” or back layers, it does some of what you want - hides the other layers, shows the wanted layers. Kind of half way there.
Yes, and if it would be possible to bind multiple layers/items to toggle with the same key, users such as @ArtG and me could easily achieve what we want.
Generally it would be nice to have different, user-settable profiles for colours and visibility of items like pads, tracks, parts and so on. So you can quick switch, up to the actual use case.
Do you like that KiCad has different colors for front and back pads, and that those colors are settable independently of the rest of the copper layer colors?[/quote]
Yes, I like this. I prefer the pads to be highlighted vs. traces and copper pours. It makes it easier to identify pads when they’re flooded by copper pours and/or connected to very wide traces, both of which are often necessary in power and RF designs.
That would be completely unusable. I design complex boards with components on both sides, and making pads on both sides be the same color would make it extremely difficult to make sense of what’s going on. That would be a tool breaker.
[quote=“craftyjon, post:1, topic:9677, full:true”]
Would you mind if pads had to be the same color as the copper layer they are on?[/quote]
I would consider that to negatively impact usability. I have no objection to there being an option to color pads and tracks the same for people who prefer that, but I personally find it very useful to highlight pads, especially when they’re connected to very wide traces.
I think that I would really like a feature like that. I often find myself having to make a whole bunch of clicks to toggle copper, components, silkscreen and courtyards off for one side of the board, and on for the other side. I’m presently still on 4.0.7, so I don’t know yet if there are already any changes in 5.0 which might make this easier. I plan to try 5.0 RC1 soon. I seem to recall seeing mention of a new feature to mirror the board for working on the back side, and I think that will be very handy.
While I’m here, thanks to everybody involved in KiCad development. It really pleases me to be able to rely on a FOSS tool for PCB design both at work and at home.