Can't change background colour in footprint and Gerber viewer.

[Rob Kam]

kicad
© 1992-2015 KiCad Developers Team
Version: 4.0.2-stable, release build wxWidgets 3.0.2 Unicode and Boost 1.59.0 Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit

In Eeschema > Preferences > Set Colors Scheme > Background Colour > White gives a white background. In Pcbnew, Gerber viewer and footprint editor this choice is missing and the background is stuck at black.

[kbunty (kbunty)]

Sorry guys, this is not a 'wish list' issue.

A black background is unusable as far as I am concerned. I have been using eschema for several years and find it very useful. However, I have never even been able to find out what PCBnew has to offer since I am not prepared to strain my eyes and squint in order to use a design tool. I've looked at it two or three times and each time I just give up after a couple of minutes. It's a show-stopper.

I usually end up drawing dots on a bit a paper and drawing my layouts by hand which is absurd when I have a PCB layout tool on the computer.

Searching for how to do this , thinking I had probably just missed where it could be set I find a lot of people having similar problems.

Could a more realistic bug level be attributed here? If it remains "wish list" priority it will probably never even get looked at as a bug and this is a BUG. A serious usability issue.

[Novak Tamas (novak-7)]

Background is intended to be black, and it is black, without any failure. If you don't like it, and want its color to be somewhat else, then it *is* a wish.

Anyway I see your point. "Straining the eyes and squit" are a bit too strong words, but white or lighter background would probably be better from the viewpoint of ergonomics.

Making it possible to set custom color for background through the existing color-setting structure (pcbnew, right panel, Visibles, Render, Background) would be quite easy (at least IMO:))

[Gaurav Juvekar (gauravjuvekar)]

Possible dupe #1530543

[Stephen (steejb)]

Although I am happy with black, I agree it should be possible to change. Indeed, in a 'static' way, the 'print' option does exactly that when it creates a PDF.

Also, it might be a handy option for documentation - take a screenshot rather than print to PDF first.

[Jon Evans (craftyjon)]

Note: in 5.0 you will be able to set the background of Pcbnew in the render settings, but unfortunately this doesn't yet apply to the footprint editor.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

It now works in the footprint editor too.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

Thanks for giving this some attention, however these only change the background colour and not the colour scheme. Some of the other colours that are visible fine with a black background become very indistinct against a white one.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

There's still some black background at Kicad version 5.0.0-rc2-dev-609-g21ceb786a, release build > Footprint editor > View > Library Browser.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

Not fixed. In Kicad version: 5.0.0-rc3-dev-14-g1a2291879), release build; there is no way simple way to change the colour scheme for Pcbnew, Footprint editor and Gerbview. These still have a black background and although it can be changed to white (via a colour picker) the rest of the colours don't suit a white background.

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

Rob, is there anything that prevents to you set the color theme to your liking? I am not sure I understand the issue you are reporting.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

In Eeschema it's easy, Preferences > General Options > Color, (as shown in attached capture). There's no such feature in Kicad, Pcbnew, Footprint editor or Gerbview. It can be done via the layers manager, (as shown in attached capture) but then other colours also need adjusting, e.g. Ratsnest to black.

Rather than having to edit colours for white backgrounds individually in Eeschema, Pcbnew, Footprint editor, Gerbview, etc. there ought to be an option in KiCad itself to select a light background for all the sub-programs and have any other colour presets affected to also change to suit the lighter background.

[jean-pierre charras (jp-charras)]

@Rob,
If you are talking about only canvas background in pcbnew (and others) only Modern Toolset can use not black background.
Not black background is incompatible with Legacy toolset.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

I'm using "F11 Modern Toolset (Accelerated)" but there's still no obvious one-click option for alternative colour schemes.

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

The original report was about lack of options to change the background colour and this is fixed. Now we are discussing support for color schemes, which is a slightly different thing. I would prefer to open another bug report for that rather than keep modifying the current one.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

That's fine please go ahead, also for dupe #1530543.

[Rob Kam (robkam)]

Covered by #1678345