Zoom failure by pressing short key "B"

Hi,

I think I found an failure at Pcbnew / KiCad Version 5.1.12.
I work with the graphic modus “Legacy Toolset”.

After placing all components on a PCB I make a ground filled zone of all layers.
At the process of making the layout, I often press the short key “B” (Fill or Refill All Zones).
At this moment the Zoom Level switch to “auto” and the view flips to another point.
Then I have to scoll out and I have to search where the PCB is.

Maybe there is already a solution for this problem?!

Best regards,
BEKA

Please don’t there should be no reason to do that. It doesn’t even exist on some systems in 5.1 [Edit: I was confused; it does exist], and it has been totally removed from v6 (which will be released later this year if Universe allows).

Hi,
in my opinion there is a better overview of the PCB, because of the half visible view of all layers.
Is it possible to get also a half visible view of all layers (with option: show filled areas in zones) in the accelerated mode?! Otherwise it is not possible to set ground via’s or place signal via’s, because you don’t know all signals under the top layer…

One of the enhancements in v6 is better handling of layer and item visibility. If you situation allows, maybe you should consider trying the release candidate which is the current state of the nightly builds.

image

You can set zones to semi-transparent, so you can see both the filling and the other layers.

This solution sounds very good. I will wait of the stable version of KiCad 6 to test it.
Thank you.

In V5 you can also set transparency of each layer.
I don’t know the background, but sometime before V4 or with V4 the Modern Toolset were added and it was in some way connected with adding good Interactive Router (that Router works only with them I think). For me the Interactive Router was the main (really only) reason to move from my old Protel to KiCad. When working in V4 I had to switch from time to time to Legacy Toolset to do some minor things I could’t do in Modern Toolset. But since V5 was released I don’t remember even one time I had to switch to Legacy (because Routing is for me much more important than visibility).
I am working with ‘Opacity’ of copper layers set to 80% to see what is going under my working layer. With more then 2 layers may be other than 80% value will be better.

Hi Piotr,

thank you for this information. I didn’t even know these setting.
I tested with some configurations and it could be a solution for now.
The visibility is not so good as at the legacy mode, especially if I put the opacity value to a low % value for a good visibility of all layers.
So I hope the visibility in KiCad version 6 is good enough, then I don’t need the legacy mode.

I didn’t found it myself. I read about it here at forum 2…3 years ago.

Something for something.
Press F11, set Interactive Router to Shove, point with mouse at your track segment, press D and see how other tracks are modified when you drag your track. This is what I liked about KiCad compared to my 1997 Protel 3. There, when I wanted to move something, the easiest way was to remove everything around and do it all over again.

You are right, that is a really good function.

I don’t know how in Legacy but in Modern you can route track by clicking only beginning and ending point and then if needed correct something by dragging segments. If you want to add new track between others they are just pushed away when you route new track.

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