Right now I am working on 2 boards for a system that need to communicate with each other. Being able to drop back to the Project window allows me to focus on just one instance of KiCad and bounce between the designs of the 2 boards.
I know that I can run 2 instances of KiCad at the same time, but that makes the proper tabs hard to find when switching between some tasks.
The current V5 configuration takes up less than 1/4 of my screen and contains the complete names/paths of everything.
That is a good idea. How do you do that? I find that I cannot adjust the vertical and horozontal size of the window (below a minimum amount that is bigger than what is needed) to hide those icons - perhaps not working as intended? (same version as above).
[For the record of the thread the window size problem is reported fixed in the split out thread.]
Edit: I notice these last posts display 3 different KiCAD versions. Perhaps time to enforce quoting version info in the posts?
Are you guys naming all your projects the same? The titlebar of the application shows the project name first (and intentionally)…show its visible in Explorer, Task Manager, Alt-tab, Windows-tab, etc
Can we keep this thread to positive suggestions please.
I know icons an issue that generate a strong opinion, but will all refrain from personal attacks 
I’ve just started on my first real project in V5.99, and I wondered If I did an intermediate save, and staring at the save icon did not help much, so I pressed [Ctrl + S] and the floppy icon changed from grey to a lighter shade of grey 
Maybe someday I’ll get used to these new icons but I find them all far to similar with not enough use of colors.
KiCad also shows the name of the project in the title bar, and it’s common practice to add an asterisk if the file has changed, but KiCad does not do this. Hmm, that may be worth an Issue on gitlab (Have not checked yet).
Yeah, I agree. The old icons were not great, but at least they were explicit.
The new icons are pretty, but not explicit at all.
The component or footprint editors icons do not have a pen or something to tell it’s to CREATE something. -> The icons present in the eeschema and pcbnew toolbars are GOOD, they have a red pen on them, please use it in the main app.
The view Gerber icon is not different from the edit PCB icon.
The Save icon is black when needs saving -> no ! black has no meaning ! it should be green, blue, or red.
Oh, also… PLEASE support dark themes 
Look at how look the toolbars in Pcbnew :
Hello!
It is clear from the start that colors were not chosen with logic in mind.
Yeah, I agree. The old icons were not great, but at least they were explicit.
The new icons are pretty, but not explicit at all.
Actually remembering 8 icons is indeed a challenge!
We are talking here about a software which is extremely well designed, and which
has been developed over many years, which represents thousands of hours of work.
We are talking about a free software with outstanding support, where any question
or problem is addressed 24 / 7 within hours when not within minutes.
We are talking about a great deal of voluntary work, all of it provided for free.
And what is these days’ criticism? Icons!
You know that proverb? When the wise points to the moon, the idiot looks at his
finger. I can’t help seeing a connection with this thread.
Oh, also… PLEASE support dark themes
You’re right, a dark theme will completely change the world when it comes to PCB
design.
I should have started with this: many thanks to the developers and to those to keep
this forum alive and always bother replying to my silly questions.
R
Seeing as Kicad’s release schedule is a full new release every year (Thanks Developers. You freaken rock!!!), I wouldn’t worry about fashion in two year’s time. They can change again in two years.
I’m not quite sure how to read this comment, Brian,
If you mean “the icons can change again in two years”: I don’t think anyone involved with this site would be particularly enamored with that idea (masochists excluded).
If you mean “fashion will change and keep changing”: then that is the point I was making. Colour choice needs to be above fashion, so, two years down the track, Kicad doesn’t receive comments such as “the icons look a bit dated”.
yes I mean the icons can change with the fashion… changing icons with major releases I think is a wonderful way to ensure people notice that they have stepped up to a fresh new version and create a very natural way to know which version you are working in for people that have old versions installed for legacy support. In addition it keeps the design fresh and current with whatever trends are gfoing on with UI design (I tend to not like new UI designs myself but whatever… not my baby). They changed many of the icons from kicad 4 to kicad 5. Makes sense they do the same from kicad 5 to kicad 6.
This was what kicad 4 looked like
This is what Kicad 5 looks like
Don’t sweat the small stuff. This is BikeShedding stuff. I don’t care what the icons look like. Just make a kicka$$ open source program I can use both at work and home without needing 3 licenses and 30 thousand dollars.
man… you were remotely reading my mind… complaining about icons is a waste of time for every single resource, whether the dev team or the HW on which this forum is hosted…
You might wanna start with yours 
Hello All, not sure to be on right place ? So, I download the nightly release of Kicad 5.99 and was surprising by the (new ?!!?) size of the Kicad main menu. On version 5.1 is :
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.99.0-10293-g7c64dba333), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.1.4
libcurl/7.74.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.11
Platform: Windows 10 (build 19042), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Date: Apr 14 2021 12:03:23
wxWidgets: 3.1.4 (wchar_t,STL containers)
Boost: 1.75.0
OCC: 7.5.0
Curl: 7.74.0-DEV
ngspice: 34
Compiler: Visual C++ 1928 without C++ ABI
Build settings:
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
Due to licensing issues, we have replaced all the icons with correctly Creative Commons licensed icons.
KiCad is not a python application, pip cannot do anything to change it.
Thanks @marekr, I have nothing to say about the icons themselves, the problem of the license or not, it is the layout with the titles and the descriptions that do not serve me personally, with this new menu that makes 3 or 4 times the size he had in version 5.
I think it’s useless, especially as when you open the schematic and the PCB editor generally, we no longer use this menu.
For the “pip”, I meant the “pipe” nothing to do with Python ! Sorry, I meant that this can be planned for later? If not it’s just a pity.
There are lots of opinions on the 5.99 icons, but the developers do get users’ feedback and the new icons get progressively better. Of course, no one set will please everybody so until there will be support for user-selectable icon themes, there always be a compromise.
The huge white window up to 5.1 had almost no use at all, so the developers decided to bring more beginner-friendly buttons with descriptions of the launcher modules. It was a wasted space after all.
I’d prefer to see my design previews there, but it’s not possible to get them without major engine overhaul to make use of the multi-document interface.
who has time to care about any of this (yes, yes I am posting as well)
