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Re: Layers Manager in PCBnew - editing non-rendered

 

orluke wrote:
The new Layers Manager is very well implemented (as of svn r2269), and I'm excited that it's so useful. [built under ubuntu 9.10]

When rendering of a layer is disabled, I feel that the fact that the non-rendered (invisible) elements can still be edited will create some problems for users who don't realize that they might be editing, re-orienting, or deleting elements that are not visible.

A use case that happened to me is that I disabled rendering of the back components, and I went to rotate a front component with the 'r' hotkey. I didn't realize that had the back component layer selected as my working layer, and I rotated a non-rendered component on the back layer under the front component that I had intended to rotate. I only realized that the back component had been rotated because it flashed on the screen for a fraction of a second. Then I re-enabled rendering of the back layer, saw that I had unintentionally reoriented a back component, and corrected it.

I don't know if some logic like "If you can't see an element then you can't access or edit it" needs to be enforced, but it would make some sense. Perhaps that wouldn't be necessary if a hatched outline of a non-rendered element appears when hovered over by the mouse pointer or when part of a block selection. Something to think about.

Thanks!
-Luke Orland

PS. This is my initial post to kicad-devel group. I've made a few PCBs with KiCad and I'm currently working on a couple more, so I wish to take this opportunity to thank all of the developers for this awesome tool.


Thanks Luke. There's still quite few things to wring out, more time is needed. Until you see that all the TODO.txt items I put in in there WRT LAYER_WIDGET are deleted, that we are aware there are still problems.

I only have about 5-10 hours per week that I can work on this, so it will simply take more time.

I agree that the invisible layers should not be affected by editing. We will eventually get to a point of usability however.

Dick







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