Easier view switching between front and bottom layers

[Jan Cablik]

Wish:
It would be nice to quickly switch view between front and bottom layers in pcbnew.
When locating a component error on the soldered PCB board, pcbnew is often used to find tracks between components. Switching view to the opposite side requires a lot of mouse clicking - e.g. switch off front cu, front silk, front mask, pads front, text front, modules front and switch on the same on bottom layer.

I suggest to add a button to switch easily between the two sides:
- if front cu is on, turn it off and turn on bottom cu
- if front silk is on, turn it off and turn on bottom silk
dtto with mask, pads, text and modules.

Next button press would do similar actions, just swap front and bottom layer names.

This would allow to choose which layers should be visible and easily move between board sides.

It would be super to add a mirror button, so the view of the board could be mirrored. When you look at the bottom side of a real PCB, you have to mirror it in your head - finding correct via to measure it's signal is not easy on a 6-layer PCB with BGA components and hundreds of vias.

[Martin Errenst (imp-d)]

The GAL in the current version brings the current layer up to the front (but it does not mirror the layout for you - which is understandable from my point of view). For mirrored view, I use the the 3D viewer - if we can get the "highlight net" function (currently nor implemented in the GAL) there too (like the way you can select parts in pcbnew and eeschema moves it's cursor to the right one in the schematic), I guess it'll fulfill your needs :).

[Joan (joanthesparky)]

@Martin J.
Having tracks highlight in the 3D view would be nice, but with it's current clumsy navigation (orbit only around center of board, zoom only around center of board) it won't be useful for looking at it from the back and doing stuff..

[Dave (g-dave-x)]

I would love to see this feature implemented. I have a difficult time sorting things out in my brain on the back side of the layout.

[Chris Pavlina (pavlina-chris)]

Heh, funny this should come into my inbox today, as it's actually underway as of at least yesterday. "Assigning" Tom for the sake of tracking, since he's the one working on it. ref: https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg22667.html

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

I wonder whether we can close this bug report, as pcbnew now offers flipped view. I mark it as 'incomplete' to start the watchdog timer that will close the report if there are no further comments.

[Julien Faucher (suzizecat)]

I think that the problem isn't really to have the flipped view, but moreover the possibility to switch between top and bottom Silkscreen layer (in example) ans so on with other top/bottom layer couples.

[Kristoffer (kristoffer-odmark)]

This exists now, we have buttons for show front/back layers only. I would say this is closeable by now.