Colors are important, cannot be taken lightly in GUIs. Color pallets are/should be adjustable.
But you knew this already.
Having more graphics layers is not a bad idea, KI has a few, more would be useful. Various manufacturing steps needs their specific info, as does engineering, design notes, and testing functions. These layers should be available selectively to specific needs. Adding it all into a single layer would be messy and confusing.
Being able to rename those layers would be helpful.
You can add a lot of user defined layers, if you want. These can be renamed however you want. They can also be whatever color you want. They can also be marked as front/back and paired.
I don’t want to discuss whether the new Via style has gotten worse or not. I just want to say that before change or delete an option, it would be good if give users the ability to configure it according to their preferred settings so they can work with the software in a way that suits them.
@craftyjon If you are talking about time optimization for software development, your argument may be justified. Otherwise, please consider that the one-way strategy is not always the best approach. If it had to follow the one-way strategy, then why it needed to be able to choose, e.g, the color of layers but not the color of vias’s pad?
If this strategy is applied in a way that limits (or takes) users’ ability to customize settings, it may lose interest, when users no longer feel comfortable or satisfied while using the software.
Anyway I appreciate the KiCad Team and would gladly support this team.
You have to create that file and add add a key/value pairs there, in the form <key>=<value> where <key> is the mentioned variable name and <value> is for example a number. A truth value can be 0 or 1. I updated the FAQ article with a better link to the source code where the variables are actually documented.
Hello, can you guide me thru this please?
I get That I need to create a called ''kicad_advanced.json" right?
then I need to write ''HoleWallPaintingMultiplier=(let’s say 8") right?
The change to the through-hole pad coloring in KiCad 9 is very inconvenient and makes the design process less user-friendly. In version 8, the gold pads made it much easier to distinguish through-hole contacts, especially when working on complex boards with multiple layers. Now, with the new coloring, it takes extra effort to identify the through-hole pads, which slows down the workflow. It would be great if the developers could make this feature customizable, allowing users to choose their preferred display style. I hope this feedback will be considered for future updates.
