Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

I know the use case is implied in this thread, and the only real need before 5 is to fix the blatant bugs, but I thought it might be helpful to explicitly state the use case. A PCB layout has too much information for it to be displayed all together on the screen at once. The user (or the

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Jon, thanks for clarifying the cases. I hadn't thought about Wayne's suggestion that way, and it does seem to make sense to me more than mine, however I don't think the Render tab's items should be checked/modified when Visibility is checked/modified. For example, if I want to turn off Front Cu

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

That's how I see it. If I turn off the top copper layer and the footprints are linked to the layer then I want to turn off the footprint pads on that layer. The remaining footprint layers would still be visible (silk screen, solder, mask, etc.). Through hole layers may be tricking. I don't

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Those are interesting ideas. My reading is that Andrey and Wayne are actually proposing two different "linking" modes: Andrey: linking Front and Back (i.e. checking Front pads also checks Back pads) Wayne: linking copper and render (i.e. checking F.Cu also checks Front pads) Am I right about

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Wayne, Yep, that's what I meant, kind of like the Photoshop linked layers. I should have added that the link is only between two of the same checkboxes that are front and bottom. Ie Front/Bottom Pads would have linkage, a different linkage would be between F/B Text, and another for etc... Please

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH/RFC] Footprint editor menu bar

Hi Michael, I'm not sure "Library" or "Footprint" conveys much meaning to the user. "Select" or "Open" should proceed them similar to other file actions like "Save" and "Load". Cheers, Wayne On 02/18/2018 06:18 PM, Michael Kavanagh wrote: > Hi all, > > Attached is a patch to bring the

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

When considering the ease of use of the dialog, remember LayerViewSet (python) adds some functionality and will be upgraded to work with v5. I hope similar functionality is built in to v6. Greg S. > On Feb 18, 2018, at 7:07 PM, Michael Kavanagh > wrote: > > Hi

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

I was thinking the same thing but rather than locked, I was thinking linked to the layer but the concept is the same. If they are linked, when the layer is turned off, so are the footprints on that layer. When they are unlinked, they are independent similar to the current behavior. I would

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Hi Jon, Make sure Andrews' patches are consistent with your commits, essentially don't commit if it'll end up as a hodge podge of code that even though it works is not coherent. I can see benefits to having control over showing front copper pads but hiding bottom copper pads, so I would keep

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Hi Jon, I like your suggestion. If you're worried about backlash, how about using a wxTreeCtrl to list the copper layers and respective names, and nested under each layer is traces/zones and pads, eg for a 2 layer board: 1. F.Cu Traces/Zones Pads 2. B.Cu Traces/Zones Pads Each item could

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

I'm going to go to the user forum with these questions too, but curious what the devs think about this: In my original RFC, I proposed eliminating the different between "front" and "back" in the Render checkboxes. I still think this makes sense for things like text and footprints, but I'm having

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Thanks Wayne and Jeff (and yes there are a lot of edge cases here to sort out) Note that Andrzej Wolski already did propose some changes related to this that might be good to merge as a first step. I have only done limited testing on them so far but they do work and resolve some of the problems:

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Use polygonal hit testing for module selection

Hi Wayne, In my testing there is no performance impact, but more testing is welcome. It shouldn't be doing the calculation on too many objects in general, since this is a "second pass" hit test that applies to modules that have a bounding box overlapping the mouse cursor. However, I did some more

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Hi Jon, Sounds good to me too. A few edge-cases you might want to watch out for: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1733894 https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1744521

[Kicad-developers] Version 5 branch

It looks like we are going to have to push the stable branch off until we fix few more crash bugs. I'm fine with pushing the oce 18.2 bug off but we should fix this as well before the stable 5 release given that distros are starting to rollout 18.2. As soon as the few crash bugs are

[Kicad-developers] [PATCH/RFC] Footprint editor menu bar

Hi all, Attached is a patch to bring the Footprint Editor menu bar items in alignment with the Pcbnew one. I have also tried to clarify the "select active library", "open footprint" and various save/export options to make the menu items say what they actually do, for example: - I've changed

Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Hey Jon, I'm good with all of this. I would like to get this cleaned up before the stable release if possible since there are so many complaints and bug reports about it. Thanks, Wayne On 02/18/2018 03:00 PM, Jon Evans wrote: Hi all, Right now the behavior of the "Layer" and "Render"

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Use polygonal hit testing for module selection

Hey Jon, Did you notice an performance hit with your patch? Obviously there is going to be more overhead calculating a polygon versus a rectangle. I just want to be sure we are not causing any usability issues due to the polygon calculations. Thanks, Wayne On 02/18/2018 12:10 PM, Jon

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Pcbnew menu bar

Indeed I did forget. Thanks for the reminder. Thank you Jeff for the patches. On 02/18/2018 03:02 PM, Michael Kavanagh wrote: Thanks Wayne. Please don't forget to merge Jeffs dialog changes which complete the Pcbnew menubar modifications. I have reattached them to this email for convenience.

[Kicad-developers] [RFC] Change to object visibility system for usability/clarity

Hi all, Right now the behavior of the "Layer" and "Render" tabs of the layers widget are confusing to users, resulting in complaints on the forum and some bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1748181 https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1743890 I could take a crack at fixing this

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Pcbnew menu bar

Michael, I figured out why we are not using IS_ACCELERATOR for these menu entries. AddHotkeyName() adds a "+Alt+" to the hotkey so this is *not* what we want so I used the original 0003 patch. I apologize for the confusion. I merged this and you 0004 patch. We can make any tweaks to it

[Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Use polygonal hit testing for module selection

Hi all, The attached patch adds some plumbing to calculate and make use of a polygonal bounding area for modules. It fixes the below issue and in general improves the accuracy of selection in my testing. This mechanism could be extended to other objects besides modules if it's useful. I

Re: [Kicad-developers] Improving Eagle Import netlist matching

This looks a lot more reasonable to me although there may be some corner cases that we haven't thought about but we can fix those as they pop up. I'm sure user's reactions to the all global label solution will be WTF. At least that was my reaction. The amount of work to go back and fix this

Re: [Kicad-developers] [PATCH] Pcbnew menu bar

In every other app New, Open, Save, Save As and Print are standard hotkeys and not accelerators. They don't have the modifier key, so are the "standard" keyboard shortcuts. Nevertheless, please find attached new patches for review. These accompany both of Jeffs dialog patches. Hopefully I didn't