My idea also.
You have a lot less viewability while editing tracks in V5, without fiddling with the opacity settings of different layers, or turning the zones completely off.
Weird though that the 4 mounting holes of the RJ-45 connectors are yellow in both screenshots ???
I work with eagle at work now. I can tell you that kicad is definetly not inferior to it with regards to how it shows layers
eagle has no support for transparency. And it does not blend the layers like kicad legacy does.
It also stores layer colors within project files instead of a global layer setup so you can not really change the colors if you have to work with others. At least you can not change layers to have different colors if they have the same colors by default.
The fact that the default setup does not use transparency at all is a bit of a bad decision to be honest.
The screenshot is made a lot worse by viewing zones in filled mode (Not really how i would work with it. I like the fact that in kicad i can select zones to be in outline mode. In eagle for example i need to ripup the zones to be able to see what i am doing.)
Here a comparison using a board with more part density but with zones on invisible inner layers. (So a more modern board with smd pars instead of tht)
Original legacy:
Original open gl scheme:
I feel with open gl it is much easier to work in such cases. Especially the task of laying down traces as it means you more easily see the layer you work on right now.
But well lets get transparency involved shall we?
For a quick and dirty setup i simply gave all top copper 50% transperency (I do not show paste and mask here as i do not want to invest too much time into this)
And here the setup i personally work with (Colors are less saturated to make it easier on my eyes. Very limited use of transperency as i personally do not really like to see other layers while i lay down traces. Blue instead of green for the backside layer as i do not like mixing red and green. Inspired by the behave syntax highlighting scheme for atom):
For my scheme i also hide paste as i have kicad kind of setup for footprint review and need paste to be extremely visible for that task.
Verdict: The renderers are different. There is no way to recreate the legacy mode in the new renderer. People who are used to the legacy view will hate the fact that the legacy canvas will vanish.
I however feel the new renderer is better suited for complex high density boards as it more easily allows the user to focus on the layer they work on right now.
And be prepared to switch which layers are shown for different tasks (One needs different information when laying down traces vs when deciding where to place a component. For example the courtyard layer is not strictly necessary while working on the traces.)
Thatâs true for zones. Thatâs why I said in my previous post: âThe only thing I miss is the ability to define the color and especially opaqueness of zones apart from other copper.â Now I have to switch between zone visibility modes too often.
If the design doesnât have zones or they are invisible, how exactly the old way is better? The mixed semi-transparent colors of the legacy canvas are actually contrary to what has been said:
Semitransparency makes it impossible to tell which is in front of which.
So, can someone tell exactly what the wanted logic is?
Donât understand my sentence as postulate that working layer have to be at front.
I was telling about situation with no transparency possible.
I was just against opinion that it was good in V4 that PCB was visible as true PCB (top layer in front of bottom layer). And I donât know how it really was in V4 I just based on what Iâve read in this thread.
I donât understant if âpunctuateâ means you understand me as being for or against you (punctuate as giving puncts or punctuate as hitting adversary at box ring).
I understood you (previously) that in V4 you always have seen top in front of bottom and you wont it being that way and only that way. I donât remember myself how it was in V4 (as experiment designed one very small PCB - so few hours of PcbNew experience and then 6 boards with Protel). My experience is (in old (1997) Protel) that any layer I select to work on becames in front of all others. And I said that if I had to work on bottom then haveing it covered by top would be a problem for me. Also it happenes that I have to mark for myself some places at PCB (by small crosses at one mechanical layer). If it happened that my cross is just hidden by let us say big DPAK pad on top than how I can simply do it.
I donât know if it was such in V4 but I understood you that it was such and you want it be such.
v4 open gl behaved very similar to how stock modern behaves in v5 with the addition that v5 now can work with transperency in modern.
It always had the active layer as the one that is up front.
The comparison here is therefore not between v4 and v5 but between legacy and modern toolsets.
But it does not make sense to talk about what is up front in legacy! That renderer mixed colours of all layers. This is where the confusion comes in for everyone who is a bit more familiar how kicad works. (There is a big communication problem here. I would guess @gbeauw has some specific complaints but is not really able to explain them such that we know what exactly is going on.)
The only reason I began being interested in KiCad was that I have seen the demo of modern toolsets. So I have never looked at legacy behaviour. So what I have written about my little experience in V4 should be here understand as 0 experience because even in V4 i worked in modern toolset.
From first post:
2. The various PCB layers are not showing properly in terms which is in front of which.
I understood that in 4.0.5 the layers were shown âproperly in terms which is in front of whichâ and @gbeauw impend 
that if it will be not the same in V5 he will not use it.
As in my opinion during design you need not to see layers âproperlyâ but in order to help you design I added my 3 cents here, but now I think I would better not did that.
At that moment I would like KiCad to do that way. If it was such I would be able to change colours to grays, export doocumentation pictures and close program without saveing pcb to get back to my working colours.
There are better ways to achieve this that do not have as many side effects. A separate color profile for printing comes to mind. (I even doubt that it would be easier to implement storing colors in the pcb file compared to having separate color profiles for different tasks.)
As we have said multiple times alread: This is simply not true! KiCad never showed the layers in the order they are on the pcb. It always either mixed all of them together (legacy canvas) or showed the active one on top (modern canvases).
This will be the last time i correct anybody about that. If people again start to spew out misinformation here then i will personally lock this thread down. (This really is the first time i seriously consider this move.)
I was trying to explain from what my incorrect assumtions commed (but you cited only the second half of my sentence).
I always admire how much good work you are doing at KiCad forum but at this moment I suppose that may be the cost of it is that you sometimes read too fast.
Thatâs a sin of not only a few of us, I admit.
A hint: There is the quote feature that makes a lot of things more clear.
Team,
Hereâs is what prompted my confusion.
View in PCBnew in 5.0.2_1
View in PCBnew in 4.0
Based on the discussions in this thread it seems that how you do design and see things has changed. To me it seemed like it might have been bug when I first fired up 5.0. However, after reading the thread, it sounds like that this change is an improvement to the PCB design tools which I gather from those of you more experienced in PCB design, is true. (Iâm still a rookie at this.) If everyone likes the way this now works then that is OK but I would still like to âsomehowâ adjust something in PCBenw to get the view I had before when I need it.
The reason Iâm asking for the ability to change something to get that view is that what I was doing in 4.0 was to take a screen shot of the PCB layout as it looks in its final form to document to others that I was working with to show what the PCB âlayoutâ will look like. On initial use of 5.0, it seems that I can no longer do that and the only reason is that the ordering of the layers has changed and is unchangeable .
Having said that, If someone can show me how to get the same view that I was getting in the past with 4.0 by changing some setting in PCBnew then Iâm happy. (BTW, no, I really donât plan to go back to 4.0. I just want to make that clear.) I think being able to get that screen shot/view is important to some of us and it appears that ability is lost now. It seems that the Devs can change the default layer display stack order it would return that view ability without (I think) impacting the new design tools. The other way to provide that is to add the ability for the user to adjust that layer stacking order would also return that ability.
Iâm hoping someone can show me how to make some sort of simple adjustment in PCBnew to get the shot I used to be able to get in 4.0, then Iâll be fine. (It could easily be the case I just donât understand how to work the new model to get that shot.)
If there isnât a way to get to the shot shown in second picture above, Iâd like to request that the layer view stack order be changed in the code to show it like in 4.0. Alternatively if the Devs can provide an adjustment feature so that the user could maybe drag and drop the layers in the Layer Mgmt window to different positions to change the view order. Example: If I could drag F.Silk (and a couple of other layers) more to the top of the list so that they are displayed near the top, that would allow us to generate that old Layout shot with all the layers shown in the order that they are on the PCB. (It might even be a help during the design phase.) I think that would be an enhancement to the code that would be nice to have in PCBnew.
Again, many thanks to all of you as your input on this thread continues to help me understand why things were changed and how each of you make use of it. Those comments will help me to use PCBnew in better ways.
Another thought for how to get the shot I was talking about (although the idea might be too hard to implement):
If what Iâm trying to get is the PCB Layout shot, would it be easier to add a â2D Viewâ option under the VIEW menu item that shows the Layout?
I know I can use GerbView to get this shot but it seems I have to do a lot of work to add the layers in the proper order to get the shot. Maybe a button in that code that automatically adds all the layers in their normal order might help.
Again, in my case I just would like to have the ability to get that Layout shot quickly and easily like I had in 4.0. Iâm open to any ideas that donât take a lot of coding.
Set your Copper layers opacity to say 80% and see if the result will be satisfying for you. Opacity setting is available on the right side of the color selection panel as a vertical slider.
What layers are important for that? Do you want to have both top and bottom visible at the same time?
If you want a realistic view the 3D viewer might be helpful. There you can see the board as it will be manufactured and take a screenshot.
You get a âas will be producedâ view when selecting silk as active and hiding the technical layers you are not interested in.
You can then decide if you want to see both front and back or only front (or back). If you want to see both then play with opacity till you like the result. Otherwise simply hide the layers of the side you are not interested in right now.
By the way v5 has a flip view where you can see the board as if you look from the bottom (meaning back is normal way around and front is mirrored. This could help with such a screenshot.)
And i think the print options might be better suited to what you want to achieve. You can select to view whatever layers you want and print to pdf in either color our black and white.
Rene,
Thanks for the suggestions. However, none of them really get me the same quality of shot that I was able to get in 4.0 as seen below.
The closest I can get is by setting the F.Cu layer to 50% opaque as you see below.
The âPrintâ function really doesnât come close to the old 4.0 shot either. (See below.)
I know this all seems like a trivial request/issue but I really miss being able to get that great, clear, screen shot showing the layout the showed all the important parts of the PCB all in one view.
Again, would you explain to me how going back to the display order of the layers that we had in 4.0 would be a problem using the current design tools in PCBnew? It seems all of the discussion folks are frequently turning off layers and using different opacity while doing the layout. I canât see why returning to the default display order in 4.0 would cause problems.
Additionally, I think if the Devâs added the Drag-and-Drop ability to reorder the display stack in the Layer Management window that might also be a nice feature to PCBnew. (However, just going back to the 4.0 display order seems easier to me but that might not be true.) That reorder layer stack feature would also probably need a âDefaultâ button so you could return to the order it currently shows the layers in today.
Again, thanks for your suggestions. In the mean time, Iâll have to use the 50% F.Cu opacity as a temporary âworkaroundâ but I sure hope that the Devâs will consider some of my above suggestions for a future release.
I do not like to repeat myself that often but here we go: The legacy canvas does not use any layer ordering. It mixes together all layers.
So you whole idea about how this works is completely wrong.
And with what you show in the screenshot you do really not need transparency at all. You only show front side stuff so select no transparency but make sure silk is selected as the active layer. (With silk active it is displayed in front of all other layers including copper. Selecting a layer as active is done by clicking on its name. The active layer is indicated by the little blue triangle next to it.)
