kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 22, 2018, at 7:58 AM, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Currently some of the render visibility stuff is saved in the application preferences, and some is not saved.
> I think if there are layers related to board item visibility that aren't saved, saving them in the project or board makes more sense than saving in the app config.

User perspective:

Saving the render visibility in the project or pcb file “touches” that file, so Kicad will want to save the file when you close the project or PCB. And then your source-code control system thinks that the file has been modified (because it was!). This sort of change has nothing to do with the design, it is only a rendering/display detail.

A common example: I often use pcbnew (or Altium, it has the same problem) to view a design, without intending to actually modify it. And when doing that, I often change layer visibility and such. When closing the pcb file, the user will be asked to save the file. “But all I did was look at different layers .. I didn’t change the design!” 

So, please, don’t keep layer visibility/rendering information in the pcb or project file!

-a

> 
> Re. 3, yes I think that same framework could be used to add some shortcuts for the "render" side pretty easily.
> 
> Re. 2, seems reasonable, haven't looked at the code yet
> 
> I can probably tackle this but can also leave it to Andrzej if you are interested in it.
> 
> @Wayne I guess the first patch can be merged now if you are OK with it, since Jeff isn't worried about conflicts?
> 
> -Jon
> 
> On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 9:53 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> On 2/22/2018 9:10 AM, Andrzej Wolski wrote:
> > If some work on Render panel is still being done, I would have some
> > suggestions:
> > 1. "Text Front" and "Text Back" should be renamed to something like
> > "Footpr. Text Front" It is misleading now.
> 
> I'm fine with this but please do not abbreviate the word footprint.
> 
> > 2. "Bl/Bburied Via" and "Micro Via" could be hidden if they are disabled
> > in design settings.
> 
> This makes sense as long as you do not couple the layer manager UI code
> to the board object code.
> 
> > 3. It would be nice to have right click menu with something like:
> >     "Show all footprint related"
> >     "Hide all footprint related"
> >     "Show all free primitives"
> >     "Hide all free primitives"
> >     "Show all other???"
> >     "Hide all other???"
> >     "Show all"
> >     "Hide all"
> 
> Don't we already have something like this in the layer manager (see
> attached image)?
> 
> > 4. State of some checkboxes is not saved.
> 
> I think only the layer visibility states are saved in the board file.  I
> would rather not add any more non-board related information the board
> file format than is already there.  This state information could be
> saved in the project file or the application config file.  My preference
> is the project file but it's not a strong preference.
> 
> >
> > If you can't, I could do some of these changes (if it's not too late for
> > them).
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andrzej
> >
> >
> > W dniu 2018-02-22 o 05:39, Jon Evans pisze:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> This patch rearranges the Render panel to be in a more logical order,
> >> and adds some whitespace.
> >> I divided it into three groupings:
> >> 1) footprint related
> >> 2) other board objects
> >> 3) non-board stuff like grid, ratlines, etc.
> >>
> >> I also bumped out the default size so that scrollbars aren't needed by
> >> default on my Linux system.
> >>