kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Seth,

See below:

> On 14 Jun 2019, at 00:22, Seth Hillbrand <seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> On 2019-06-13 10:26, Jeff Young wrote:
>> So I’ll be the contrary one.
>> First, I do agree with getting the number of access points down.
>> However, I find myself turning the ratsnest on and off a lot.  And the
>> toolbar is /much/ easier than the layers palette for that.
>> As far as Preferences, I agree that it’s the right place for
>> curved/straight (well, actually I’d be inclined to just offer
>> curved, but I already lost that fight).  But why have shown/not shown
>> in preferences?  And for that matter units and coordinates.  These
>> aren’t really set-and-forget types of things, and the options
>> toolbar is both easier to access and more visible for inspection.
>> So how about removing in/mm and polar/cartesian from Preferences (and
>> leaving them and ratsnest on/off in the options toolbar), rather than
>> moving ratsnest on/off to Preferences?
> 
> 
> OK.  It sounds like we are in agreement that the ratsnest on/off doesn't belong in preferences but curved and probably show-on-move settings do.
> 
> I'll take global ratsnest out of preferences and take the curved icon off of the left bar.  Can I also remove global ratsnest options from the View menu?

The View menu is more accessible for sight impaired users.  That said, I think our story is pretty weak there anyway, so it may be a moot point.

> 
> @Jeff- What if I added hotkey handling for toggling view items like the ratsnest?  Would that address the rapid switch issue?

(1) yes, a hotkey would be great  (2) no, I don’t think it would substitute for a toolbar icon.

> 
> I'd like to put in/mm in the board settings (for the current board) and remove it from the preferences panel and side toolbar.  You can already set the grid to inches/mm so switching the display units is less likely (I think) and would usually be on a per-project-basis.

I still like the toolbar icon here too.  I got back and forth constantly because I use metric dimensions for my board outlines, mounting holes, etc., but a lot of the footprints I use are in mils.

Cheers,
Jeff.

> 
> Best-
> Seth