General program symbols

[Lutz_Muller]

I think that the general program symbols are stored in a DLL. My suggestion would be to put these as SVG in a folder so that everyone can adapt their KiCad so that its symbols are meaningful to them.
The background to my question is that the new symbols are certainly pretty, but they all look the same to me. I’m just looking for where my program is.

[Jonathan_Haas]

KiCad is open source, so you can simply download the icons from here: bitmaps_png/sources · master · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab if you need them, no reason to extract them from a DLL or something like that.

Here’s a direct download link: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/archive/master/kicad-master.zip?path=bitmaps_png/sources

[Lutz_Muller]

@Jonathan_Haas

KiCad is open source, so you can simply download the icons from here: bitmaps_png/sources · master · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab if you need them, no reason to extract them from a DLL or something like that.

Hi, I don’t want to extract the icons, I want to exchange them

@Jonathan_Haas

Here’s a direct download link: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/archive/master/kicad-master.zip?path=bitmaps_png/sources

Thanks for the download link, but I don’t understand how to use it.
I think the code is written in Linux and I’m using Win10.
I also don’t know how that should not help programmers to simply swap the symbols.
for FreeCad there is kicadStepUpMod and it has a directory kicadStepUpMod / tree / master / Resources / icons in which all SVG files are located. If I now exchange a file (file name is retained), it will not be overwritten during an update.

[marekr]

Icons are loaded from images.tar.gz from /share/kicad/

They are pngs in various sizes. We cannot support svg as the OSes don’t support it on their gui frameworks and svg conversion is expensive and time consuming on the fly for two hundred icons or in our case, 1016 icons after generating the various sizes.

[Jonathan_Haas]

@Lutz_Muller

Thanks for the download link, but I don’t understand how to use it.

If you download the zip and unpack it, you’ll get a folder structure with “light” and “dark” at the end. These folders contain SVG files. There’s no source code.

However this is just for getting the icons to use them elsewhere on your pc. You can’t easily replace the icons within KiCad.

[marekr]

@Jonathan_Haas

@Lutz_Muller

Thanks for the download link, but I don’t understand how to use it.

However this is just for getting the icons to use them elsewhere on your pc. You can’t easily replace the icons within KiCad.

You absolutely can, see my note above. We no longer compile the icons into the binary.

[Lutz_Muller]

@marekr

You absolutely can, see my note above. We no longer compile the icons into the binary.

How can I put it absolutely? Please show me an example for Windows.

[eelik]

Open C:\Program Files\KiCad\6.0\share\kicad\resources\images.tar.gz. That’s the resource KiCad uses. You can replace any icon there, they are recognized by file name. Beyond an image editor which handles png files, you just need a program which reads/writes .tar.gz file format, for example 7zip.

The png icon files have been created from SVG source files. But runtime KiCad uses only those png files.

[Lutz_Muller]

Thanks for the answer, now I understand.

[Lutz_Muller]

Thanks again,

upload://4NBriflkckNrQIzyVmUbJXQFn0q.gz

here is my first result

I’ve attached the file. If you want, you can rename your file “C:\Program Files\KiCad\6.0\share\kicad\resources\images.tar.gz” to “images.tar.gz.bak” and copy it to the directory. Then simply restart.
Regards
images.tar.gz (661.9 KB)
–___________________–

[marekr]

I like how you took the reason why we stop using the old icons, i.e. copyright violations. And then added your own copyright violation by taking the winzip logo and pasting the kicad logo on top.

[Lutz_Muller]

Ok I didn’t know there were problems with the icons. I’m still new to KiCad. That means I’ll remove the link again. In private use there shouldn’t be any problems.

But I want to go back to why I did it. As you get older, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell apart symbols that are so small and of the same color. If it were up to me I would also use a larger mouse cursor, select the (symbol/footprint) and only then use the keyboard to select the individual areas in order to edit them.
Also, it is difficult for me to hit the wires or lines with the mouse.