kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Werner Almesberger <werner@...>]

Gabriele Oberhammer wrote:
> - everyone agrees that Kicad needs a more powerful and modeless(floating)
> layer properties editor (from now on called *LPE*)
> - this will suffice to power users and/or users with dual head
> configurations, but

I was just about to write that it would be particularly useful in
those situations where you need to experiment with colors, but then
I realized that you can already see your updates with Apply, without
having to cycle through the menu again.

So it seems that a compact interface (possibly floatable, why not)
for the very common operations of changing layers and hiding/unhiding
them, plus something very similar to the current dialog would be
sufficient.

> Developing two separate interfaces (EDD/LT and LPE) to set the layers
> properties has several advantages:

Hmm, I often find it quite confusing if I'm presented with two
different ways to modify the same settings, particularly if neither
is quite a proper superset of the other. Example: the edit component
dialog in eeschema vs. the same functionality in the component
editor. Both are fine if considered in isolation, but if you run
into what at first sight looks like competing interfaces, that's
very confusing.

This means that, if you create a "more verbose" parallel interface
in order to make it easier for newcomers to get their bearings, you
might actually defeat that very goal.

Similarly, if you have a streamlined interface and there's no
obvious and direct way (right-click, "More" button, some other kind
of hint) to get from that to the fully featured version, people will
find the simple one, stop looking for the complete interface, and be
unhappy about the missing feature. If you're lucky, they'll complain.
If not, they'll think KiCad is useless and warn their friends so that
they don't try it either.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I think you're on the right track. And as
long as the thin strip of simple icons is on your list, I'm happy ;-)

- Werner