Re: gEDA-user: PCB non-feature... work-around?

["KURT PETERS" <peterskurt@xxxxxxx>]

> > Now, when I try to only see pwrgndsd, it turns off the entire group,
> > kind of defeating the purpose of separating the layers, in my
> > opinion.

> Intentional.  The purpose of the grouping is to color the signals 
> differently.

The colors are nice, but of limited utility.  It seems like the 
functionality to turn off colors without having to assign them to different 
groups should exist.  I have no idea how difficult that would be to 
implement.  My problem is that I have gnd/pwr planes that cover up traces 
and would just like to "make those planes invisible" easily at times.

> > Thus "soldtrace, pwrgndsd, something" all turn off when any of them
> > turn off, and all turn on when any one of them turns on.  The same
> > for the other three.  Is there some way around this and still keep a
> > two-layer board?

> What I do is re-group them as individual layers, do my editing, then group 
> them back.

Isn't this possibly a little dangerous?  You would REALLY need to pay strict 
attention to whether lines clear polys (or not) since you wouldn't get the 
"feedback immediately" as you're laying the trace.  You'd only find out 
after you merged wether you left that off for your trace or not.  Those 
pesky orange-highlighted pads sometimes aren't too instructive of where you 
connected two wrong nets.

> >   My understanding, which may be wrong, is that if I move pwrgndsd to 
> group
> > 3, and somethingcp to group 4, that would create a 4 layer board?  Is 
> that
> > understanding right?

> Yes, maybe.  What makes it a 4 layer board in reality is telling the fab "I 
> want a four layer board, here's the gerbers" :-)

True! but pedantic.  ;-)

> You can do whatever you want as long as you re-group them as two groups 
> before exporting it to gerber.  The exporters assume one physical layer per 
> group.

Kurt




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