Ctrl + F - Doesn't work well with text variables

Schematic
1

Not sure why this is, or if i need to enable something somewhere… But I just noticed that you can’t search text variable nets as they appear, but instead you have to search what their text variable is named…

For example I had an interlock signal which is called and appears on the schematic as “PRIVATE_INTERLOCK”, but when you double click on the label you see ${PRIVATE_INTLCK}… Now if I do Ctrl + F, and type “PRIVATE_INTERLOCK” nothing shows up… not until I type “PRIVATE_INTLCK”. Seems to partially defeat the purpose of the text variables - which enable easy swapping of signal names that could travel cross many sheets or may simply be instantiated at many points on the schematic.

Change the variable and it changes all the places where its used - very convenient… by why wouldn’t it search based on what it appears as?

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor (64-bit)

Version: (6.0.11), release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.1
libcurl/7.83.1-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.13

Platform: Windows 10 (build 19045), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
Date: Jan 26 2023 07:02:30
wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.80.0
OCC: 7.6.2
Curl: 7.83.1-DEV
ngspice: 38
Compiler: Visual C++ 1934 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON

2

Which version of Kicad are you using? Is it 7?

3

Updated original post - its 6.0.11 my apologies.

4

As far as I know, currently, the search function only looks for the exact text string that is entered in the search box, and not the text variables that are used to represent that string.

One possible workaround would be to create a custom schematic symbol for the text variable, which would allow you to search for the text variable name directly. For example, you could create a schematic symbol called “VAR_PRIVATE_INTERLOCK” that has a single label with the text “${PRIVATE_INTLCK}”. Then, when you want to search for all instances of the “PRIVATE_INTERLOCK” net, you could search for “VAR_PRIVATE_INTERLOCK” instead.

Another option would be to use the “Find and Replace” function in KiCad to replace all instances of a specific text variable with another text variable or net name.

Anyway, I am still a new user here. Let’s see if anyone from the Kicad team comes up with a better solution.

By the way, I have found a detailed Kicad tutorial here:

You can post your question there too, if you wish.

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