I am attempting to familiarize myself with KiCad after several years using Altium Designer. I am running into some issues doing some very, very basic things and I could use some assistance.
In Altium, when I wanted to rename a sheet in a hierarchical design I would simply rename the sheet in the project and hit save. When I wanted to remove a sheet, it was just as straightforward. However, every time I try to do these basic actions in KiCad, I end up with unintended behavior.
I recently opened up a new project based on a template I found online. The template had sheet names that I did not want to use, so I renamed them. Once I saved, closed, and reopened the project, the schematic sheet I had modified was empty.
Here are my questions:
How does KiCad handle schematic sheet (sub-sheet) renaming and linking? Why do deleted sheets remain in the project directory on my workstation?
If available, please let me know what resources I can review to better understand how KiCad works. My experience with Altium was vastly different from this, but given the cost of Altium I would prefer to learn to enjoy working with KiCad.
One thing I can tell you is that operations on child sheets are done in a couple of places. The page number can be changed in the hierarchical browser, but to operate on the sheet properties, you need to select the sheet rectangle and then open Properties. This is where you can change the sheet name and file. The link to the parent sheet is by filename.
Deleted sheet files remain because they might be used by another project. If you are quite sure they are not used by another project, you can delete them.
I haven’t read through all of the documentation yet, but I’m working my way through it. What I’m describing seems to be a design choice of the developers.
I see where I can edit the subsheet title and filename, but this does not seem to reflect what is happening in the project and OS.
Do you understand what I am referring to when I say that renaming the subsheet, saving the project, closing and then reopening the project results in errors? It seems as though renaming the subsheet does not have the intended effect that I assume it would, having worked with Altium before.
If needed, I can record a short video of this, or share some images along with more description of my workflow and the results I see.
Renaming the sub-sheet and having it create a copy in the file system instead of just renaming it isn’t a huge issue. My issue is that the link between the file and sheet does not seem to be happening.
Ex: create new project from template. Template sheet has filename “Section A - Subsheet.kicad.sch”. I want to rename it as “DC_DC_CONVERTER.kicad.sch”
I rename the file and save the project. Some work is done in the subsheet (adding components, wires, etc.) In my Windows Explorer window, I see both “Section A - Subsheet.kicad.sch” and “DC_DC_CONVERTER.kicad.sch”.
I close the project and reopen it later. The project opens without issue sometimes - other times there is an error, but the subsheet is empty regardless. I need to revert the name back from “DC_DC_CONVERTER.kicad.sch” to “Section A - Subsheet.kicad.sch” in order to recover my work.
I’m obviously doing something wrong, but I don’t see what the issue is. Again, my experience in Altium was to simply rename the sheet. No other action was needed. No manual linking, or renaming of files within the OS. Any insight into how this workflow should be done?
Do I understand correctly that you have got a standalone example project with which you can replicate this problem so that you can open the project from a saved state and doing certain steps show the problem predictably?
If yes, zip the project and attach it here. We won’t spend our time creating or finding a template, creating a new project from it and then find out that it works for us without problems. Give the project and give exact steps one by one so that they can be followed blindly without guessing or choosing any alternative workflows.
That is correct, eelik. And that’s a good idea. I’ll zip the project and attach it here later when I am able. I will also try and create a video (or other visual guide) to go along with my step by step instructions.
Hi craftyjon, here’s how I renamed the sheet. It is likely the cause of my issues.
I would navigate to the schematic sheet containing my subsheet, hover over the subsheet and type “e” to pull up the properties. There, I rename the sheetname and sheetfile.
Doing that should work (you will get a popup asking for confirmation to create a new file) so I’m not exactly sure what went wrong. It sounds a bit like you renamed the sheet and then made edits to the old sheet (note that unlike Altium, KiCad does not delete the old sheet when you change the filename of a sheet, instead it saves a new copy)
Craftyjon, you wouldn’t believe how dumb I feel right now.
I think I may have been hitting “e” while hovering over the "File: … " text under the subsheet before. I just re-did the steps that I typed in my previous message, and things worked as expected.
Wow. PEBKAC to the max.
Thanks for all of the help everyone. Turns out, user error is the cause of all my problems.
