kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 22, 2018, at 10:48 AM, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> The tradeoff there is that other users will have a workflow that involves setting up a nice set of layers displayed/hidden for working on a board, and want to switch to another set for another board.
> Maybe saving in the app preferences is okay in the short term, but I think eventually it's best to be able to save custom display states (including layer visibility and other options) in the project.
> Other software has solved this problem by making multiple project files, and having the idea of the "base" project file and the "user settings" project file, with the latter explicitly not going in to version control.
> -Jon

A “dot” file for this sort of preference, which in Unix is hidden by default (gotta do an ls -a to see it), seems to me a good compromise. Upon creation of the project, a .settings file is created from reasonable defaults (a system default? user default?). Changes to the display/rendering configuration get saved here. If it gets deleted, or isn’t in the SCC repo and the project is checked out elsewhere, it gets recreated from defaults when the program is run. If the user cares, it can be added to the SCC repo.

-a


> On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:15 PM, Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:devel@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
> On Feb 22, 2018, at 7:58 AM, Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto: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!