And now Kicad’s “3D Viewer” window shows 3D models for electronics components
So this is how I obsoleted the imperfect default libraries inside /usr/share/kicad/ that lack 3D models, have weird naming conventions etc. Now I intend to use git pull sooner or later and when I will do it, my official libraries will be overwritten. This is why I will avoid changing them.
I am planning to copy & paste (& modify) whichever library elements I need in my projects to my private libraries. This is what I want:
I plan on having one library for each project,
Each library will be a “git repository” with a .git subfolder for version control, so I can just send URL’s of my libraries to my coworkers and they can git pull my repositories without knowing what is in the other libraries.
I am not sure if I should put the libraries as subfolders in project’s main folders or on a separate location…
How would I do this in terms of Kicad? I was thinking of creating an enviromental variable e.g. LIBRARY_PROJECT and each time that I would start working on a project I would point it to the project’s library. But after I created it this enviromental variable wasn’t visible in “Symbol library manager’s”’ section “Path substitution”.
So what do I do? Should I avoid using enviromental variables for private libraries and use “Symbol library manager” somehow? What are your experiences?
I once made a custom ${KICAD_DATASHEET) and used it to point to pdf datasheets of my custom symbol libraries. It seemed to work as expected, but it has been some time since I last used it.
Having a default location for spice models also seems to be logical.
It is not the same at all. Project’s library pointed to by LIBRARY_PROJECT could be in different location than project folder (I still wonder if it makes sense to archive projects and project’s libraries in separate folders) while KIPRJMOD always points to the current project’s folder.
I would rather use KIPRJMOD than my own enviromental variable as it seems that custom enviromental variables aren’t fully working yet and.
So I decided to use KIPRJMOD now. How do I automate the process which would:
Create this folder structure inside every new project that I open:
There is no such thing in KiCad, it can’t search for libraries, it only knows about libraries you explicitly added to global/project library table.
KiCad will, however, conveniently substitute project path portion of the library path with ${KIPRRJMOD} whenever you add a library that is anywhere within project folder.
That’s how the templates feature works right now, it ignores non-kicad files. Open a feature request on gitlab, I think there are reasonable arguments to make that feature copy the whole directory structure, devs might agree and implement it.
I have already read article at your first link, but the second link is really valuable. I am leaning towards keeping private libraries decentralised and small. Why?
Because I want to keep project’s history clean. I don’t want to read about the changes made to the elements I do not use in my current project, but are in the centralised library which I also use for my curent project. In other words if my colleague edits a part that I currently don’t need in centralised library I get a notification which I don’t want.
It is easier to send around emails with a smaller private libraries and if I send my project to a person, with whom I would love to work with, and there is a library with millions of elements, he will be confused. With the small private library all he gets is a couple hundred elements or less and it is easier for him to get around this. Otherwise he might put his tail between his legs and run away!
I can just compress the project’s folder and put it away knowing that it will work whenever I need it at a later point in time.
I first want to work on a project and see if everything works out well. Afterwards if libraries prove themselves worthy I can still add them to my centralised library. But they are tested first in the project!
