Is there a way to save the settings from one GerbView session to the next? After loading in 10 or more Gerber files, setting up the display order, and adjusting colors to my liking I’d like to come back to the same setup on the next time I use the program.
Or, is there some way for GerbView to automagically recognize and load a set of Gerbers after I “Plot” them from PCBNew? At least that would save some trips through the file selection menus.
I looked through the menus and “Help” documentation and these features don’t seem to be there, but perhaps the information is hidden or not obvious to my tri-focaled eyes. I always visually inspect the Gerbers after I finish a layout to make sure the fab house will see a layout the same way I see it, and often times before it’s complete to make sure I’m getting the results I want in some tricky or uncommon layout situation. The no-charge gEDA tool “gerbv” ( http://gerbv.geda-project.org/ ) allows you to define and save a “project”, and load the whole set of files, in the desired order, and with your preferred color scheme, in a single operation. Between these two programs I don’t know if one hogs more computer resources than the other, or if one renders Gerber files more accurately than the other, but “gerbv” seems to be more user friendly!
The setup file of gerbview keeps the order of colors and that’s mostly it.
If you start it from the KiCAD main window it should drop you off in the project folder. As my gerbers are plotted into a subdir of that it’s the one topmost and I just click on that to get to the gerber files.
When gerbview loads the files it seems to do it in a certain order which doesn’t change.
So all I do now is always print all fabrication layers (no matter if I need all of them or just some for fabrication).
The layer color and order in gerbview is constant then.
Example:
2 layer pcb.
I plot front/back each for copper, silkscreen, paste, mask, outline and then the drill file.
That’s 9 gerber files.
Gerbview loads them in the same order each time - no matter which project. If you now set up your colors and plot these layers (no matter if you have silk screen on the back or copper at the front or not) the colors in gerbview will stick to the layers.
Essentially a workaround to get gerbview to align colors with layers as it doesn’t have the ability by itself.
It took me an hour to find out it’s KiCad’s way to not load the gerbers automatically. (I felt like a fool nobody at this forum seems to have had the same thought.) It’s possible though to load all gerbers at once (by selecting them with Shift+End). It wouldn’t be an unnecessary luxury to mention that in the GerbView HTML doc.