kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Ing. Gabriele Oberhammer" <gabriele@...>]

Thanks for all the replays :-)

Based on all the replies considerations, what do you think about the following compromise?

- a slightly larger toolbar with two columns, see screenshot (note this is a mockup made 
with wxFormBuilder, it's not working code!)

- only the available layers are visible on the toolbar

- with the first columns you select the current working layer (obviosly only one layer can 
be selected at the same time).
Using a toggle button makes it easy to see which is the current layer.

- with the second column, made of check boxes, you choose if the layer is currently 
visible or not (obviously an hidden layer cannot become the current working layer)

- with a right click on a layer button, you can bring up a popup menu with several options:

'Edit name...' which opens a dialog for....(suspense...)... changing the layer name

'Edit color..' " " " " " color
(Maybe the color could be selected with a ColourPickerCtrl)

'Change button position' which allows to move the button to another position on the 
toolbar (the position will be saved with preferences)

'Anything else'

- on the bottom of the bar, there is an 'Undock' button. Pressing this button hides the 
LyersToolbar and opens up a *modeless* version of it which can be moved anywhere (even on 
another monitor).
Or insted we can label the button 'Switch to advanced mode' (or anything similar) and 
display a new version of the 'Pcbnew Layers color' dialog, enhanced with controls for all 
the functions present on the tollbar popup menu, so you can select them immediately 
without right-clicking anywhere.
....mmm, maybe this is a better idea, because on this 'advanced' dialog we could also 
choose which technical/other layers will be present in the 'docked' LayersToolbar

- remove the layer selection drop-down menu


I know that simulating the docking/undocking mechanism is not elegant, but I guess this is 
the only multiplatform compatible solution without switching to wxAUI.
Moving to wxAUI will be a really big improovment for UI usability, but I guess this would 
need a huge kicad UI rework.

Again, best regards :-)




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