kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Chris Pavlina <pavlina.chris@xxxxxxxxx>]

Let people choose. Have the default colors be wxDC-friendly. Trust me,
nobody is choosing to work with eight-layer boards in legacy.

On Tue, Feb 07, 2017 at 09:01:10AM +0100, jp charras wrote:
> Le 07/02/2017 à 06:31, Simon Wells a écrit :
> > i thought this wasn't possible due to wxDC limitations
> 
> Exactly, wxDC does not have a transparency feature to draw items.
> 
> In this case, when you want to draw board layers with a transparency effect, the only one other way
> to do that is to use logic combination between colors (for transparency: the OR operation.)
> 
> In other to achieve a good result, you cannot use any color for layers.
> You have to choose a set of colors which allows this good result.
> (by adjusting the 32 bits binary values of each color to ensure a good result when 2 or more color
> values are ORed)
> 
> There are not a lot of suitable binary values.
> In all cases the background must be black (when using OR or transparency).
> 
> Note also Eeschema does not use currently transparency, and the choice of colors is not critical.
> 
> > 
> > On 7 February 2017 at 17:00, Chris Pavlina <pavlina.chris@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> I'm working on an eight-layer board and really can't wait for this to
> >> hit pcbnew too. It's bloody impossible to tell layers apart with KiCad's
> >> state-of-the-80s-art color system.
> 
> I have made a few boards with 8 and one with 16 layers.
> There is no perfect way to see all layers.
> 
> I used Pcbnew and Altium (in a company which has a Altium license) to design a 8 layers board (2
> very similar boards, one with Pcbnew, the other with Altium, because this company used Altium).
> 
> Altium allows arbitrary colors and transparency, but a 8 layers board is not easy to manage.
> 
> So do not expect allowing arbitrary colors and transparency will fix your problem.
> (In the best case, it slightly helps).
> 
> 
> Having said that, using a selected set of colors does not imply using EDA_COLOR_T in Kicad code.
> wxColor can be used instead of.
> 
> This is only the *color choice* in Pcbnew which is constrained in legacy canvas.
> 
> EDA_COLOR_T comes from the fact the legacy graphic primitives where written for an other library,
> not for wxWidgets.
> (Kicad was started before wxWidgets exists)
> 
> >>
> >> On Mon, Feb 06, 2017 at 10:03:11PM -0500, Jon Evans wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> I started working on the idea of a color theme system for KiCad, starting
> >>> with the schematic editor.
> >>>
> >>> This change relies on a complete removal of EDA_COLOR_T from the code, and
> >>> replacement with a color structure that can handle arbitrary colors.  I
> >>> think this is important and the right path for the future, but since it's a
> >>> significant change, I wanted to get buy-in before going any farther down
> >>> this road.  I can understand the reasons for using an enum for
> >>> color--especially since it lets the developers restrict the colors to those
> >>> that will work well with the drawing technique of the legacy canvases.
> >>> But, since the new canvases will have no problem supporting arbitrary
> >>> colors, I think it makes sense to start setting up the groundwork for that.
> >>>
> >>> In my test code, I have replaced EDA_COLOR_T with wxColour, since that is
> >>> used internally in a few places already, and it was pretty simple (although
> >>> somewhat time-consuming) to replace all usages.  wxColour has the nice
> >>> property of serializing/deserializing from hex color codes like "#80FC62"
> >>> so that's what I use for storing in the settings for now (eventually I
> >>> think color settings should be in their own files so that they can be
> >>> traded by users).  Plus, there is a canned wxColourPicker widget that I can
> >>> use in place of the custom color picker buttons that are used in the
> >>> settings today.
> >>>
> >>> You can see some screenshots of the (work-in-progress) settings dialog
> >>> changes, and an example of a custom color theme in the schematic editor,
> >>> here:
> >>> http://imgur.com/a/MxMmb
> >>>
> >>> So, any feedback from the core team?  Any reason why I shouldn't move
> >>> forward with preparing a patch to move from EDA_COLOR_T to wxColour across
> >>> the board?
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> Jon
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> >> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> >> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> > Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> > More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jean-Pierre CHARRAS
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp