According to the code, the value of a power symbol cannot be changed. But I didn’t realise this, and have gleefully been changing them:
As you can see, the field is perfectly editable. Although, in the properties dialog, it is not:
So am I unwittingly playing with fire, by changing it?
The background is important here: what I’m actually trying to do is create all my separate power symbols with a library name prefix of “power_”, so I can stick with an existing one-custom-symbol-library convention and not lose my power symbols amongst all the others.
So what I did was create the symbol with a symbol name of say “power_VBAT” and then set the value to “VBAT”. I recall I had to do this in the correct order, because setting one would automatically set the other, but not the other way around. How ever I managed it (which I’m not exactly sure of now), I achieved my goal and had a set of library symbols with names like “power_VBAT” and “power_VIO”, but whose values and pin names were “VBAT” and “VIO”. I was even able to have symbols like “power_VBAT_Source” with a different graphical representation but the same value and pin name, which was important in a few peculiar projects.
I’ve just gone back to add a few more - same computer, same v7.0.0-0, although I’ve moved the symbols into a different library - and noticed the restriction! Indeed, in the symbol editor’s properties dialog, I cannot set the value to be different to the symbol name, but if I dismiss the properties dialog I’m free to independently edit the value text visible on the symbol itself:
So now I’m a little worried my library is going to become untenable in an upcoming bug fix. I wonder if I should jump ship now, go back and add a new field to each symbol so I have something I can set on the schematic that isn’t tied to the symbol name. That’s a pretty revolting prospect, but better to know now!