The open issue of changing the non-copper names is best settled if we had a complete
list of proposed names to change to, and to make the determination if this is worth the
disruption.
Aw oh. I slept on it and woke up thinking about this as my first conscious waking
thoughts this morning. (Don't say it, I know I need to get a life, I've been working on
that, for a loooong time.)
As I attempt to show, I think there are some improvements in conciseness possible
(conciseness = ratio of clarity to size), even in the copper layer naming.
I like the wildcard notion and wanted to be able to use it in a few other places. I also
noticed that "Inner3" does not explicitly say it is a copper layer.
Of course the value of the combos is the reduction in Pcbnew data file size, and increased
speed of parsing. (Would put the [combo] mask into the hashtable instead of the layer index.)
Attached is my proposal and recommendation.
I would say that the combos can be used even in *.kicad_pcb files where they can. Custom
layer names pertain to cu layers, and to tracks more than pads. Here are the heuristics:
a) if a combo can be recognized in a layerMask when Format()ing, then it should be used,
in either BOARDs or MODULEs.
b) otherwise, if saving a BOARD, then use the translated layer names.
c) otherwise, if saving a MODULE, then use the untranslated english layer names.