I’ve just started using Kicad so still getting used to its quirks. I have one thing that I find particularly frustrating and cannot figure out… I have created a new symbol for an IC and placed the reference and value fields in the lower left corner of the symbol. When I go to add the symbol to my schematic the ‘Choose Component’ dialog shows my part as designed, but when I select it and add to the schematic the reference and value fields are central to the part in the horizontal axis (but where they should be in vertical).
Is this something I am doing wrong or some kind of bug? See attached for images explaining what I mean.
I am sure there was a feature where KiCad would automatically place fields, I can’t find it now in v4.0.7. I can’t think of any other reason that fields would move about.
Ummmm . . . . pure speculation here . . . . when you update or replace a symbol in EESchema, does the program remember the previous locations of the “Reference” and “Value” fields, and place the fields from the new symbol accordingly?
(I think that PCBNew behaves that way, at least on the Nightly build (circa Feb 2017) I’m running. I can’t speak for the stable builds, or other Nightly builds.)
A less exotic explanation is that you have another copy of the UC3906 symbol hiding in an EESchema library, which has precedence over the library where you finally parked your custom symbol. Try moving your custom symbol library to the top of the EESchema stack, then delete and re-place the symbol on your schematic.
(If that solves the problem, I wish you the best of luck trying to find the library where you accidentally parked the errant version of your UC3906 symbol.)
@bobc thanks! You were spot on… There is an option in Kicad->Preferences->Editing to “Automatically place component fields”. Unticking this and “Allow field autoplace to change justification” sorted my problem.
FYI I’m running a nightly build 2017-10-23 revision a562525.
