5.99 Custom symbol fields

Up to 5.1, if I used custom fields in my schematic, these appeared for all new symbols.
In 5.99, if I add new symbol I must also add my required custom field.
Is there a way to disable/enable automatic field adding, or is it a regression in 5.99?

Sounds interesting. I was pretty much unaware of custom fields. I am using an August 2020 build of 5.99.

I use them for my database unique ID for a part. Using these IDs I do get important information into my BOMs, without storing these inside my schematics.

You just want the field name to appear (so it’s easy to enter a value)?

Did you add them to either your schematic’s Field Name Templates (Schematic Setup), or your global Field Name Templates (Preferences)?

1 Like

Thanks, that was the missing bit. I’ve did this once in my setup before, but as my 5.99 uses different preferences set I had to do this again. Somehow, I’ve missed this part of configuration.
And yes, all I expected was an empty field ready for entering my value.

I don’t think 5.1 supported both project-wide and global field-name templates, so perhaps that made it harder to smoothly migrate your 5.1 settings.

(I probably even wrote that code, but my memory’s awful so who knows.)

We attempt to migrate the global ones from the previous config if you choose to import your settings from 5.x when starting KiCad for the first time. Of course there could be a bug there…

I did not migrate settings from 5.1, with 5.99 I’m using KICAD_CONFIG_HOME to isolate my 5.99 settings (I know, now they’re automatically separated but I did not wanted to change it later on).
For some reason I expected that they’re stored in my project, as the project itself was imported.

If you create a bug report and attach the project we can investigate to see if there is an issue with doing the project migration

I can’t find any trace of custom fields definition in my 5.1 test project.
The only place I’ve found them is the EESCHEMA configuration file, so in 5.1 they seem to be stored installation-wide. I run Windows if that matters.

So…that implies that if it does not matter, you run something different? Maybe 10 kM in 15 minutes? :slight_smile:

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.