kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[José Ignacio <jose.cyborg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 11:18 AM, André S. <list.dev.kicad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I want to add from a users view:
> In the current KiCad 4.0.7 (Windows 64 bit) you can't drag traces in
> OpenGL/Cairo, only in legacy. (With this I mean: move a segment of a trace
> and it stays attached to the other segments of the trace (Hotkey: 'G')).
> Hotkey 'M' moves segments in OpenGL but moves 'connections' in Legacy
> (segments stay connected).
> More often than not I need the behaviour of Legacy and not that of the
> OpenGL canvas.
>
> In GAL the key to move connections is D, which allows you to drag traces
using the push and shove algorithm. Why is it this not G? I have no idea.


> Values are not displayed in OpenGL/Cairo, only in Legacy.
>

That is odd, is there a bug report for that?


> And "transparency" is better in Legacy. With only 2 layers you can see the
> traces on the bottom layer better than in OpenGL/Cairo.
>

This was broken recently when the RGBA setting was added. It used to be
that all layers would have 80% transparency by default. this probably
should be fixed again, I personally prefer to set the transparency even
lower for inner layers too. This is all user settable in the nightlies.


>
> Just for this few reasons I still use Legacy more often than OpenGL when
> modifying an existing PCB design.
>
> From my view OpenGL is nice because you can manipulate single items
> (segments of traces) better/more comfortably than in Legacy. And initial
> layout work feels smoother.
>
> Just my 2 cents. :)
>
> Happy new year,
>   André
>
> PS: as a side note: When I switch from "Standard/Legacy" or OpenGL to
> Cairo the PCB view goes white and only after a few seconds displays the
> PCB. In the other direction there is no delay.
>

Performance was greatly improved in GAL in the latest nightlies, did you
try them or just the GAL as seen in 4.0.7?


>
>
> Am 2017-12-31 um 22:28 schrieb Jon Evans:
>
> For your consideration, a patch is attached that implements the above.
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 2:24 PM, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I think that getting automatic OpenGL detection and recovery working for
>> 5.0 might be ambitious.
>> Maybe Chris can detail what the next steps are for his approach there,
>> but in case we want to push that to a later release, here's what I propose:
>>
>> 1) Rename the View menu options based on my proposal "Legacy", "Modern
>> (Accelerated)", "Modern (Fallback)"
>> 2) Change PCB_BASE_FRAME::SwitchCanvas to save the canvas config value
>> after calling UseGalCanvas() rather than before.
>> 3) Show a first-run dialog like the mockup in my earlier email, IF canvas
>> is not OpenGL and the dialog has not been shown before
>> 44) If user clicks "yes" in the first run dialog, then:
>>     (a) set the config value to prevent the dialog from showing again,
>>     (b) Set the canvas config setting to Cairo (but don't switch the GAL
>> to Cairo), then
>>     (c) switch to OpenGL canvas using SwitchCanvas()
>>
>> That way, if the app crashes in step 4c, it should come back up as Cairo
>> on the next launch (assuming we crash right away when trying to set up the
>> canvas)
>>
>> Any concerns with the above?
>>
>> -Jon
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 1:55 PM, Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> No menu items.  Just a checkbox for Enable Hardware Acceleration in
>>> Preferences.
>>>
>>> On 31 Dec 2017, at 18:36, Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> - In the case of graphics glitches, inform the users in the FAQ/Manual
>>> that they can fall back to software renderer in the View menu.
>>> - Don't use the term 'canvas' or 'view'. Just 'Enable HW acceleration’.
>>>
>>>
>>> I like that. The fewer technical/programmer terms, the better.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>
>
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>
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>