I suppose the current way of doing this is going back to the schematic and inverting the pins of the component. Taking vertical resistors as an example, pin 1 has the body of the resistor, pin 2 has the wrapped-around lead.
Sometimes, I’d like to have the resistor the other way around, but if I rotate it in Pcbnew, of course, the netlist wants it wired the other way around.
It would be really neat if it were possible to rotate these components and you could draw the tracks which ever way works best.
I am not sure if I follow it correctly. The correct way would be to have it correct in the schematic. Maybe you need different footprint if that feature is related with footprint pads (but still maybe better to change in schematic instead).
If it is related with 3D, you can rotate the 3D model individual for each footprint. (or you can create different footprints with different 3D rotations)
Sounds like you need to post a wishlist element as this kind of feature is pretty special and applies to vertical wire wound/through hole mount resistors only afaik?
Your fastest way out (don’t think a wishlist element will be fruitful) will be as @kammutierspule has mentioned:
You just need 2 per resistor size… one where pin 1 is the body and one where pin 1 is the wire.
Then when in pcbnew and you want the other variant of the footprint you hover with the mouse over the resistor and hit [E], then click on ‘Change Footprint’ and in the window that opens click on ‘View Footprints’ and go for the other one.
Thanks guys, you’re right, I should just create a second set of footprints. It’ll be quicker than changing the schematic and redoing the netlist and reimporting the netlist into pcbnew.
I think creating a second footprint takes more time . I’d rather
go to schematic,
point to the component,
push E to edit,
click Mirror vertical or horizontal…depends on the component direction. (It reverses pin 1 <-> 2)
click Generate netlist,
switch to pcbnew
import netlist (maybe Rebuild board connectivity)
Wishlist: I’d welcome a new pcbnew function for the right-click-menu of all 2-pin components, what exchanges the pins of the 2-pin component in schema, recreate and reload netlist. But it is (n+1)th on importance list. It would be fine for correcting electrolytic capacitors, diodes, or making “symmetric” resistors, connectors more comfortable at wiring.
You know, there are hotkeys for that, right?
[X] and [Y]
That part I don’t get… diodes or eleoctrolytes are directive in the circuitry and the pin order MUST be going through to the layout for it to work…?!? You can’t just swap pins from the symbol vs the footprint for those.
The only case where being able to do what @xavierw wants is for unidirectional devices that have non-unidirectional footprints, but those are few and far inbetween.
As for netlist rebuild/reload with one button… I think this is on some devs pet peeve list already.
you can do it for vertical axial diodes and elec caps too, the footprint is different depending on what pin you bend.
though making a vertical elec cap by bending the positive pin is considered bad because you risk shorting to the can