What happened to the "VISIBLE" check box in text properties in KiCad 9?

[Terry_Schabert]

I have the 9.0.2 D/L and it is missing in my windows win11 version. I really need it to be able to hide all text capability on anything I want to hide. It is just good practice. Don’t allow printing hidden text, it is hidden for a reason. Don’t take flexibility away from the designer, and make the designer keep up with his hidden text. Unless the text is on the wrong layer (copper) it can’t short the traces.

[Mineotopia]

as a workaround for now you can just hit delete after selecting. Deleting it is the same as hiding it.

[mpmp]

@gkeeth

As for your question about hidden text, as of shortly after 9.0.0 release you can’t do hidden text in PCBs/footprints anymore, and some options about plotting invisible text were also removed. This is an intentional change. The reasoning is basically that PCBs represent physical objects and invisible text is inherently nonphysical. Invisible text was ignored in DRC and other functions, but could be plotted as if it wasn’t invisible, and therefore could result in boards that passed DRC to have shorts or other issues when manufactured.

All text is visible by default, and if the user choses to hide it by default, it’s their choice. Like everything else, they know what they’re doing if they change a default setting.
Now all the references are just in the way of everything else on the F.Fab and B.Fab layers, polluting the view. Deleting them or moving them to another layer is a lot more work as they have to be done individually, or I have to go into the Footprint editor and do them one by one. So much additional work for something that was a user option??