Text in mask Layer

I found this somewhat surprising. Apparently text in the mask layer is ignored.

I have the following in Cu and mask layers (just showing the mask layer for clarity)
image

The board only shows the text on the CU layer though (the first line is graphic from a logo), first the mask


Then the Cu

It seems an odd oversight to exclude text from the mask layer. I can understand not putting in by default and the graphic portion does this but there must be extra code/checks involved to force the text exclusion and I don’t see why that would be done.

As for why you would want to do this, consider the following difference in visibility between the masked and unmasked portions
image

It looks like you are misunderstanding the SolderMask layer; it is a negative, it shows where the SolderMask will not be. It is the only inverted layer.

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Nope, I understand, that’s what I want.

It exposes the underlying CU for visibility. See the image above for how not visible the Solder mask makes the underlying CU and how that affects text.

It still seems that you have a misunderstanding somewhere; as KiCad easily allows for exactly what you are asking.

What version of KiCad are you using?

Picture may be worth a thousand words, and this is two(2) pictures so it may be worth four(4) thousand.

Masked_Text_2

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I’m using 5.1

The text is showing up only in the CU layer. It does show up in the mask layer in the footprint editor

image

However, once placed on the board, it only shows up in the Cu layer.

You do realize that there are at least 3 versions of 5.1? This makes you seem lazy when others are trying to help you out.

Anyways, try clicking the colored square in the Layers Manager such that the little blue triangle arrow is pointing at that layer:
Masked_Text_3

I didn’t realize actually, just trying to keep from flooding with extraneous information.
Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.0)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.68.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.61.1
Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

Do keep in mind that the 3D preview also doesn’t show the text in the mask.

Selecting the mask as the active layer does not help, It does show the graphic but not the text. It’s specifically just the text that does not show up.

I did find that for the silkscreen version I had to turn footprint text on (there also appears to be no way of moving the text out of the footprint text items pseudo layer but that’s a different topic), however that does not affect the mask. It only affects the silkscreen and Cu layers

Please explain exactly what you want to achieve.
If you want the text to be exposed HAL/ENIG from the soldermask (I do it many times), it is enough to place Text on Mask layer only.
Single Text object is applied to a single layer only.

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As stated earlier, the SolderMask layer is an inverted layer; it shows where the SolderMask will not be. The 3D viewer will show either the color of the bare board material, or as shown in my example above, the copper from a zone fill.

Also, keep in mind, that in your shown screen grabs, it is not obvious if you are working with the Front side or the Back side of the board.

Again, this is really easy for KiCad to do. Why not try to duplicate the example I provided above?

Could it be that there was a bug in 5.1.0? Try updating to 5.1.2. (It is fully compatible with your version as it only contains bugfixes.)

Or also: share your footprint for us to play with.

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I just tested with the latest nightly build (Windows) and mask text in a footprint works.

Yes, and that’s what I want. However, although the text shows up in mask area in the footprint it does not show up on the board.

Is it not obvious from the orientation of the text?

Good idea

OK, as I prepared the footprint to share I found that the slightly modified (to protect the innocent) version worked. So I tried replacing the original via Update Footprint and it still failed. Finding that odd I then simply deleted the original and re-inserted it and it worked. It appears that something wasn’t getting updated with the footprint update for some reason.

Well, that’s a nit scratched.

Text in footprints is seen as fields. It might be that these are not loaded form the library similarly to changes to the 3d model settings.

That makes sense as a diagnosis. Of course there’s plenty of times that text is just graphics.

This also shows up in that its display is toggled separately from the layer it’s on.So that it can be marked as show on the footprint and turned off elsewhere.

It may make sense to have the capability of marking the text as simple graphics.

This could be part of a more generic reinterpretation of https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1823080

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No. There is the option to Flip the board view.