How to show only items on current side

[eelik]

This is the part I don’t understand:

@abbeyWigan

but I can’t see them unless I turn the whole of the Front layer on which defeats the whole exercise.

THT pads are visible all the time, they are not tied to Front layer visibility.

[abbeyWigan]

@eelik

The green bottom layer is visible at front, so are THT pads. The red top layer is in backround and doesn’t block my view to the green bottom layer. The bottom layer is selected as the active layer. No need to tweak Items visibility.

Is there anything wrong with that? How would that prevent routing in the bottom layer?

From your statement above and Pedro’s latest input, I don’t think either of you fully understand the problem. Your sample above is simply routing the underside. I can do that. You don’t have any components on the underside. I have high components density top and bottom. So here is the problem defined:

• High density SM components top and bottom (with top and bottom components lying on one another)
• Some THT components on top.
• Disable all top components in order to route bottom SM components and make connections to THT pad.

I did say so all along.

[pedro]

As far as I have understood you want to disable everything on top but the tht pads.

This cannot be done with one click. So I suggested untick F.Cu, F.Adhes, F.Paste, F.SilkS, F.Mask, F.CrtYd, F.Fab on the layers tab and Pads Front on the item tab.

Maybe is not what you want, but it is quite close.

[eelik]

@abbeyWigan

Disable all top components in order to route bottom SM components and make connections to THT pad.

How’s that different from my second screenshot? Density isn’t relevant, the principles are the same: I have some SMD components on the bottom layer (net ties in the screenshot) and THT components on the top layer. I can see the bottom layer and the THT pads even though the top layer is invisible and the bottom layer active.

[eelik]

@abbeyWigan

Disable all top components

Wait a second, maybe this is the key. Do you mean “disable so that they are completely ignored and not selectable”? In that case what pedro just suggested will do the job. You can even easily open the context menu on top of the layer manager and click “Show all back layers” which also disables all front layers.

[eelik]

@abbeyWigan

I did say so all along.

Well, this is what I found you saying all along:

@abbeyWigan

through-hole pads not showing though. I’m working around that by simply switching on front layer occasionally to make any needed connection before switching it off again.

@abbeyWigan

we need an option here to leave through-hole pads on when layers and items are been switched off.

@abbeyWigan

the bottom copper layer is still active and solderable, so I should be able to see those THT pads. That I can’t see them at the bottom simply because the top is disabled tells me something is wrong.

@abbeyWigan

but I can’t see them unless I turn the whole of the Front layer on which defeats the whole exercise.

Again: F.Cu or or other F. layer visibility in the Layers tab of the Layer Manager doesn’t affect THT pads. They are visible if the B.Cu layer is visible.

Maybe you have kept some items in the Items tab unchecked. Don’t do that, disable only layers.

[eelik]

@abbeyWigan

This is the expected behaviour. The footprints are not shown and non-pad copper is shown for the “ticked” layers.

Really? Why should this be the expected behaviour when all I’ve turned off is “Footprints Front” and the THT pads are set to be present on every layer?:

Maybe because if you turn off footprints of the front side those footprints are turned off altogether. What would be more logical? Remember that those holes belong to those footprints.

But I understand your point. It might be desirable to see THT pads even though the other parts of footprints are disabled. The logic of the Layers Manager has been discussed before v5.1 (or was it before 5.0?). No matter what the developers do they do the wrong thing because someone wants different logic. It’s impossible to make every possible enable/disable combination possible.

At the moment the closest you can get to preventing the front layer interfering is to keep the items enabled but all the front layers disabled. That way you don’t see anything (including pads) from the front layers and they don’t respond to mouse actions, either. If you want to disable front layer pads and other footprint properties, including responding to mouse, but enable front layer zones and tracks, you’re out of luck I think.

[paulvdh]

So I’m back, and trying to make sense of it all.

@abbeyWigan It is not clear to me what sort of behaviour you are wishing for. To me (and other posters in this trhead). It is logical that if you turn the footprints off, then also the pads are turned of (& of course for all layers). The pads are a part of the footprints.

The Item you specifically asked me:

@abbeyWigan

Can paulvdh please give us more details how he managed to get the correct answer and clarify “Turn pads off”?

is the “Through Hole Pads” checkbox in the Items tabs. But this is not what you want.
You want to always see the pads, and therefore you can not turn the THT pads or “Footprints Front” off.

I think what you want is turn Layers off, not Items.
With the right mouse button on the layers manager, you can change the settings of multiple layers with 2 mouse clicks:

You have already discovered that your micro via’s and blind vias are not drawn if you disable the layers they are on.
I think you are close to the behaviour you want if

[RMB] / Hide All Layers
[RMB] / Show All Back Layers

From there you can more refine which layers you want to view by clicking on individual checkboxes.

How clear is it to you what those 20+ layers do, and what they are for?
If this is not clear to you then read a pice of the manual about explanation of the layers in KiCad.

If it is still not clear, then try to forget all those long posts above, and make a (not too long nor too short) description of what behaviour you want from KiCad, all together in a compact single post.

[abbeyWigan]

@pedro

This cannot be done with one click. So I suggested untick F.Cu, F.Adhes, F.Paste, F.SilkS, F.Mask, F.CrtYd, F.Fab on the layers tab and Pads Front on the item tab

Thanks Pedro. I got sufficiently close using your suggestion above. Thank you to all other contributors too.

[abbeyWigan]

@paulvdh

I think you are close to the behaviour you want if

[RMB] / Hide All Layers
[RMB] / Show All Back Layers

That also works a treat and is a single-click version of Pedro’s approach. I think we have a solution that works. Thank you.

[eelik]

@abbeyWigan

That also works a treat and is a single-click version of Pedro’s approach.

No no, the “single-click” solution is just Show All Back Layers because it also hides all Front layers. So you can switch between front and back with Show All Back Layers and Show All Front Layers without Hide All Layers.

[paulvdh]

@abbeyWigan

That also works a treat and is a single-click version of Pedro’s approach. I think we have a solution that works. Thank you.

This is 4 mouse clicks.

@eelik

No no, the “single-click” solution is just Show All Back Layers because it also hides all Front layers. So you can switch between front and back with Show All Back Layers and Show All Front Layers without Hide All Layers.

Just learned something new here. (Yep, it works), but it’s still 2 mouse clicks. First to bring up the menu, and then to make your selection.

Sorry for nitpicking, but I’ve gotten alergic to this when 10 years or so ago those “one click buy” shops started poluting internet and you needed 20 mouse clicks or so to do anything.