Footprint editor colours not changing

Software
1

Hello.
I just changed to V5.1.5-3 from 5.1.2. I am running windows 7 64 bit pro.
I cut my PCB design teeth on Ultimate long, long ago and I like to use the pad & track colours that I am used to: red for back, green for top. This works fine in PCBnew.
In the footprint editor, it appears that whatever colour is set for top or back pads, they stay at green for back and red for top. All associated layers are changeable to whatever I want, say front mask can be magenta, yellow, blue etc. and front silk is equally adjustable.
When imported to PcbNew, the colours change as I expect them to, but setting up smd pads in a new footprint is really confusing now.
Is this a design feature or some bug in the editor, as it used to be fine in the previous versions?

Pad_edit.pdf (306.4 KB)

2

Right hand site Items. There are small color squares. Hover mouse pointer over them.

3

Pads have their own colour separate to the copper layer. See the items tab in the right sidebar.

4

Hi both,
Yes, and that is how I have always changed them in the past.
If you look at the attached Pad_edit.pdf, P1 shows the F.Cu tab on pin 8 as red, but the layers tab shows green. P2 shows B.Cu being green even thought red is selected in the layers tab. The colour is still retained in outline mode. I have tried several alternative colours, but they remain red for top and green for back.
The mask, paste, silk etc can all be changed to any colour.
Or have I missed something?

5

Yes, you missed Rene’s comment.

Under items, Pads Front and Pads Back

1 Like
6

@pedro @Rene_Poschl @jos

Thanks for that. Found it now.

I am a bit confused as to why the pad colour can be changed seperately from the layers colour in Footprint Editor, as so far as I know, no copper tracks / fills are possible in footprints, so I wonder what purpose it serves.

What version did this change on? Historically from (very poor) memory, changing the layers colour was all that was possible, and there was no “Items” tab in earlier versions.

Thanks for the help - much appreciated.123

7

The items tab exists since at least version 4.0. But it could be that it was only for the modern (opengl) toolset.

Consitency with pcbnew is possibly the largest reason. One could ask the question why the footprint editor even has separate colour options.

By the way if you are interested in playing with colours you might be interested in https://github.com/pointhi/kicad-color-schemes

8

Thanks. Your explanation may be correct re toolset. The link is interesting.

9

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