A quick question - Not sure if I’m doing something stupid and missing something, or whether it’s a future feature request…
Is there a way to make the project / PCB remember which layer colour theme to use for the PCB? Surely this should be part of the project / PCB, and not a global setting?
Background
So I like my layers to be coloured according to function. Just the way I work. Signal layers in the top half are shades of red, signal layers in the bottom half are shades of blue, power layers are a shade of yellow, and ground layers are a shade of green. It helps when you’ve got lots of layers like this:
If I set it for working 4 layer PCB (Red-Yellow-Green-Blue), it’s great on 4 and 2 layer boards - 2 layer boards ignore the inner yellow and green.
However, when I go to 6 or 8 layer boards, it seems to not realise an 8 layer theme is needed. It’d be nice if when I loaded a project / PCB, it says “Use this theme”. Sure, if the theme isn’t available then drop back to a default, or store the entire theme in the PCB / project file.
Is there a way to make the project / PCB remember which layer colour theme to use for the PCB?
No.
Surely this should be part of the project / PCB, and not a global setting?
I strongly disagree. Color themes are a very personal thing, and I don’t want to have to work with the color theme of my colleague if I open (and modify) the project he has started.
Completely agree with you here, and this is exactly why the question is being asked. The way I like it means that the colour scheme that works for 2 and 4 layer boards doesn’t work for 6 or 8 layer boards, and vice-versa.
A better way, that allows both, would be to store a theme name within the project/PCB, and then the actual colours in each theme on the user’s PC. If, when you open the PCB, the theme doesn’t exist on the user’s PC, it can be created with some set of default colours, but can then be changed by the user for their individual preference, whether that’s bright saturated colours, or pastel shades…
That way, the PCB will open with an appopriate theme irrespective of the number of layers, but it will still allow individual users to choose the colours they prefer.
For example, you could create the following themes, with standardised names across your organisation (could be abbreviated where neccessary, but I’ve done it verbose to demonstrate):
And I fully support that. All I’m asking is for a bit more granularity, so that it works better!
They shouldn’t, and I’m not suggesting they should.
If you work for a large organisation, then a set of pre-defined colour theme names is no major problem at all. Individual users are still free to choose exactly what colours they want in those pre-defined themes.
Are you aware of the color-by-net and color-by-netclass features? These are stored with the project rather than the user settings, and maybe will help with what you want. For example, you can assign a green color to the GND net, and then optionally show that color on all GND copper.
No, but happy to look at it. Is it well documented? A quick search of the two phrases you mentioned didn’t seem to reveal what and where to configure things?
I’d settle for a dropdown on the toolbar that allows a quick change of the theme.
OK, Learned something new today. Great feature, and might be able to get something useful out of it.
Not sure, though, because the fundamental problem (that stops it working exactly how I want it to) is that as you go through different stackups - 2, 4, 6, and 8 layers, the function of each layer changes. So on a 6 layer board, layer three might be a signal layer. But on a 4 layer board, layer 3 could be ground or power. Sure, you can override these for ground and power, but for the rest “unclassified” nets, they’ll fall back to whatever the incorrect (in my case) colour is in the theme. And that might be the bit that makes it not work, because my power and grounds are mostly planes, and these are mostly switched off.
Having just tried, I’ve now got an 8 layer board with the “wrong” theme, and net colouring. And it’s now more confusing, because there are some traces that are green, because that’s the “wrong” layer colour, and some pads that are green, because that’s the net colour. Have a loot at the capacitor at the top of the picture. There are actually 3 separate layers there, and the tracks in the middle aren’t ground.
As I said, I’d be happy with a dropdown box on the menu that allows me to quickly change themes.
But having the theme name (but not the colours in the theme) stored in the project would be perfect. This would allow a bit of intelligence behind theme selection, but still allow users to completely choose the colour scheme.
The perceived problem is that I like the layers to be coloured by function, but the function changes depending on the stackup:
For a 6 layer, the first 5 are:
with the bottom layer blue.
But for an 8 layer, the first seven are:
with the bottom layer blue.
What I’d like to do is associate the 8 layer theme with the 8 layer boards, and the 6 layer theme with the 6 layer boards, so it chooses the right one by itself when you open the board.
I know it’s a big ask - None of the PCB packages I’ve used (Orcad, Eagle, NI, Altium, CADstar) have ever got it quite right, but KICad is the closest so far.
Place a Feature Request on Gitlab. Maybe a Developer will be interested.
To place a request:
Kicad > Help > Report Bug.
You will have to register with Gitlab. It takes 5 min.
Then you can create an issue, but first, click on the “Issues” in the LH column and read a few to see how to create an issue.
Start the Title “Feature Request” to make it easy for the triage.
Your OS and Kicad version will automatically be included in your issue.
