Footprint filter

Hello…
If symbol have defined footprint filter that can be used in cvpcb. But is it possible to use that filter directly from eschema pressing F to edit footprint.

Not by pressing F. Open the Tools -> Assing Footprints dialog (so called “Cvpcb”). Choose the filter and unchoose the other filters. Choose the component, for example R1. The symbol’s filter is used.

CvPcb is pretty much the best option for heavy filtering.

Sometimes I use the filter built into the Footprint Editor to search for a footprint:

After you’ve found the name of a footprint, it’s pretty trivial to copy the name to some other location.

I’m know for cvpcb. But if you have 100 components and only 1 need to have different footprint the cvpcb is overkill.
To explain situation. I use only footprint that are verified from me on design. So I create own library and for resistor I assigned SMD0805 as default as that is what I use 95% of time. But when I created resistor symbol I set the filter so that my SMD1206 is available too. Now when I draw schematics when I place resistor I know that is 0805. But if I need to change that something other I expect just to hit F(otprint) and update footprint. It is possible to do that just now but you can select any component without help of filter. To use cvpcb at least in 5.99 you need 1st to anotate schematic then find correct component and then is possible to assign footprint based by filter. And when you add next nondefault component you must run annotate/assign again and this is time consuming. CvPcb is nice to be used when the schematics is completly drawn. But assigning footprint that way require way more focus to not miss something while setting footprint while drawing decrease that risk.

Your long description was exactly why I suggested to use the Footprint Editor to search for a footprint.

The search box in my previous screenshot has a regular expression like syntax which helps in filtering the results.
Apparently it does not work to copy the name of a found footprint from the Footrprint Editor, but once you know the name of the footprint you want to use, you can easily click on the book case icon in the footprint variable of a schematic symbol and then browse to it and double click.

I’m afraid I don’t understand you. For example I have symbol for regulator with default value.

And footprint filters as

Usually I need that in TO252 so I defaulted as this. But sometime I need THT TO220. So is it possible to use that filters from eschema at all? CvPcb does that work but require a lot of clicking to be done (and schematic must be annotated). As I understand you use that from pcb editor.

So what I want to achieve is that when I change footprint when drawing schematics but using only footprints from footprint filter. When I create part I do check that footprint match. But after that I want some way to be sure that I select only components that footprint matches but not for example TO-220 as that can have different pinout but name so similat and easy to mees.

Ah that is clear at least :slight_smile:

Nope. Not from Pcbnew, but from the Footprint Editor.
In the Footprint editor I entered “252” in the search box in the left top, and it lists all footprints with the string "252 in it. The first seven are from the “Package_TO_SOT_SMD” library.

Once you’ve found a footprint you like, you can go back to Eeschema, and enter the information manually in the footprint field of a schematic symbol.

And that is what I want to avoid. Manually entering the values. If I want to do that manually then is much easyer to hit “F” in eschema and then click library icon to get footprint library browser. So I can select anything here. …and my wish is to stay like this but to have here similar option like in cvpcb to filter out just matches from footprint filters.

So basically to have this:

somewhere here…

will make changing footprints more error prone.

I added your idea to:

[Edit:] There, fixed it.

I hate word request here. It’s just humble wish.

Do you like the way I added your idea to that gitlab post?
Did I miss anything?

It’s fine and you are using kicad long time and you better know how to ask and what is already in progress.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to add the filtered list of footprints into the Edit Footprint Field dialog. There’s now just a plain text field; it could be a combobox with free text and a dropdown list. It would be otherwise identical to the current UI, the only difference would be that the user could open the dropdown list and choose from the filtered list.

image

I added this as a wishlist item: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/6638

It is not clear what exactly would be in that filtered list.

CvPcb has 4 filters:

  • Library pre selection defined in the symbol.
  • Pin Count.
  • Library filter to limit to a single library.
  • Text search string.

Now the “book shelf” icon opens the “Footprint Library Browser”. It could also open CvPcb, but then just for a single Schematic symbol, which would not need the annotation and you can use all the filters.

This lead me to add it to #6285 (mentioned earlier) on gitlab, as some kind of combination of those search methods.

All the time we have talked about the symbol’s own filter.

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