Getting started using Python Scripts

[BobZ]

Hi, nhatkhai

Please tell me about kifield script; where do I find it? How do I run it? I mentioned elsewhere here that for some reason the next day after editing my .dcm file the description information appears to be corrected. But it did not see that yesterday. I have to figure out what I need to do so that my schematic gets updated by my .dcm file edits. Also the “description” field is not even visible in the symbol properties so that does not seem to help. Looking for a screen shot of the “gear” in Eeschema in case that offers any other options.

[nhatkhai]

You will need to again run these from cmd line. But I though you don’t want to. He is the link:

KiField updated

KiField was updated. In addition to schematic and library files, it now handles library description files (.dcm file suffix) so you can do bulk editing of a part library’s part descriptions, keywords and docfiles.

[nhatkhai]

@BobZ

gets updated by my .dcm file edits. Also the “description” field is not even visible in the symbol properties so that does not seem to help. Looking for a screen shot of the “gear” in Eeschema in case that offers any other options.

IMHO: This info are insignificant. Your BOM should be the source of true information for your design. Using schematic, symbol libraries storing them for me only to help tracking, and start eaiser. But I would not bother to change those in library, they use for tracking where the symbol come from. Not for your generate BOM.

[BobZ]

Hi, nhatkhai

I think that to some degree it is a matter of preference how you want to work. If I have a Dpak transistor I do not want any information indicating that it is some other package. So whether that information field is controlling or not is negotiable. But I do not want anything in my schematic to be contradictory. It might be OK if that information field is empty or redundant, but I do not want it to be wrong.

A related “modus operandi” question (I think it is a matter of preference and the working situation) is; for example: Do I have one library symbol to cover all Dpack Nch MOSFETs or do I have a different symbol for each different one? One method requires more front end work while the other requires more back end work.

If my schematic does not produce the correct BOM, then when I edit the schematic I need to also make sure that I update the BOM. But if my schematic produces the correct BOM then the work is done once I correctly edit the schematic. So this is a good reason to put complete correct information into the schematic.

By the way I am looking at https://pypi.org/project/kifield/#files and trying to figure out what to do next. Now looking at https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/installing-packages/
Maybe I do not want to do this…

[nhatkhai]

@BobZ

If my schematic does not produce the correct BOM, then when I edit the schematic I need to also make sure that I update the BOM. But if my schematic produces the correct BOM then the work is done once I correctly edit the schematic. So this is a good reason to put complete correct information into the schematic.

This is the exactly way I’m doing. It also the reason, I create the bom2sch, and bom2csv to ease the process, and less error-prone. Which I can just fix my BOM, and run bom2sch to update the data in eeschema. The bom2csv is generate a new csv file every time, so going from schematic to BOM you make lose addition column in the BOM. But this is my plain to have update the BOM instead of create new one in the future. So any addition into in BOM can be keep.

[BobZ]

Hi, nhatkhai OK thanks that sounds good. I understand…Those script processes seem like they help your design flow. Perhaps I will want to figure out how to run those scripts once I get further into KiCad.