I am learning to use Kicad (I was using Protel98 during more of 22 years). It seems KiCad is wonderfuld, compared with the other old tool I was using.
When I pass a component from top (Front) side to bottom (Back) side, if the component is drawing vertically in the screen, the it makes what I expect (for example, let´s say a diode, with the pad 1 drawing up, and the pad, 2 down). When I flip the diode (with letter F), then the diode change to back side, and the pin 1 is drawing below of the pin 2.
But when the component is seeing in my screen horizontally in the Front side (let´s say, the diode pad 1 in the left and the pad 2 in the right), when I flip to back side, the pin 1 still is in the left and the pin 2 still is in the right… the only thing that change is the writting of the name of the component, that is seeing in mirror, when is the back side.
I have seen, Kicad has the option of watching the PCB from back (in view/flip board view), that it seems very good… but I don´t understand yet, why if the component is drawing in horizontal, when I change to back side, they don´t change the pads position…
The footprint is flipped around either x or y axis. If you take a physical component and move it from one side of a physical board to the other side, the pin order is mirrored if you look it through the board from the original side. But mirroring happens always, as a law of nature, around one axis. The axis must be chosen somehow but only you know which axis. If you want it in some other way, you have to either flip around the other axis or rotate it after flipping.
In 6.99 it’s possible to choose the axis in Preferences → PCB Editor → Editing Options, but I already forgot if this was already in v5.99/6.0.
I was using Protel 3 till 2017 when I started to use KiCad 4.0.7. One of things that were lacking for me in KiCad V5 was possibility to set visibility and color of connection lines for selected nets. I didn’t tried V6 yet.