KiCad

PCBNew background colour

Asked by Chris Gibson

I couldn't find a place to make suggestions so I'll put it here.

I installed KiCad and gave it a throrough work out for a few days to get to know it. I have to say it's really very good. A few minor niggles, but nothing really that can't be worked round. I mean, no CAD package is perfect.

But then I realised that there is no way to change the background colour in PCBNew. That is such a major issue that I've uninstalled it and am now trialling Eagle.

A black background makes the package completely unuseable to me and many other people. It's just wrong to many old timers like me.

Trawling the internet I see this has been requested many many times over several years and yet it's been completely ignored.

A great shame really. It seems like a really good package. But that one cock up makes it unuseable.

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Lorenzo Marcantonio (l-marcantonio) said : 		#1

It's a subjective issue effectively... maybe you aren't an enough old timer, since the light background went in use with the windows interfaces... Orcad 1 was green on black (depending on your phospors:P)

Anyway, there is also a technical reason for this... layers in pcbnew are drawn or-ing with the existing image, so it the background were white you wouldn't see a thing!

There is a new graphic layer in the working, probably that would permit a non-black background to be used.

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Chris Gibson (chris-w-gibson) said : 		#2

I started on paper before OrCad ever existed. The paper was always white :)

If KiCad changes this I may well come back and give it another try, but for now the black background is a complete non starter for me.

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Joern (klettermaxi) said : 		#3

Is there now a solution - a year later?
I also miss a white background.
For me, a white background is much clearer to read.
Especially when working with two layers and devices are stuck.

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