Not a major feature but I’ve been using the alternate assignment a bit and it not really the obvious when it is in play, take the image below, two of the pins actually have alternates but it only shows the one where the alternate has been selected. I’d suggest that whenthere are alternates that the currently selected pin is shown, so in the case CKA0 would have CKA0 in the alternate column.
Now there are different issues here that I’m mixing a bit and are rattling in my head.
Flypie claims that pin71 has an “alternate pin assignment”, but it does not look like that in the symbol properties. To me it just looks like CKA0 is just the pin name for pin 71. The Zilog_Z180 is apparently also some 3rd party library, so I don’t know it’s content and it may just be a problem with the symbol itself.
From what I understand straubm created the gitlab issue because he wants some indication of the availability of the alternate pin assignments in the pin table of the symbol, and that sounds like a very reasonable and usable wish. Currently it also takes two clicks to open the drop down list (The first just selects the field and makes the down arrow appear).
Flypie seems to want a permanent indication on the symbol in the schematic itself, and that looks like a bad idea. First, real estate area on the schematic is quite precious, and second, it would just clutter the schematic by adding weird things to the pin descriptions. This sounds like a bad idea to me. I don’t want to see those things permanently in the schematic.
Additionally, my hat off to the new library maintainers. Someone is taking the various STM32 libraries very seriously. All MCU’s in the various STM32 libraries appear to have the definitions for the alternate pins, and there are a lot of them. I also looked at a few other MCU families, but I have not seen it in those, so there is still work to be done
If it is not indicated in the symbol how will someone just using the symbol know that the pin has an alternate?
Yes, it is some 3rd_party lib mine, so what? Plenty of people create symbols for their own use and before they are uploaded to the central library they have to be created by someone.
Real estate may be precious but so is user time and this gives the user information they want when they need it. Putting a symbol in over the pin itself takes no space. Do something like alternating between green and red characters in the pin name also takes no space.
One of the alternatives to this is to have a name like Func1/Func/Func3, which take up even more space.
Nothing wrong with that, I only wanted to imply that I could not look at it (with having to go search the web first).
Using multiple names like you show is also terrible. It still sort of works when there are only two functions, but uC often have 5 or more functions on a pin. Your screenshot is also Combining an inverting bubble on a pin with multiple pin functions and an overbar on some …
Yes, that is a valid point. I did not even know these alternate pin names existed, and they have been there in KiCad V6 too. It’s one of those things you’ll have to see somewhere, read the manual or accidentally bump into. It’s the same for other useful features that less well known, such as the repeat function under the [Ins] key.
But there must be some balance between usability, discoverability, and cluttering the GUI. I am not a GUI expert, and my ideas are sometimes contradictory to what others think or find useful.
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Combining an inverting bubble on a pin with multiple pin functions and an overbar on some …