I do similar…but that does not mean that I might not forget something…
Back to the original question. I had recently discovered “groups” in 5.99 and was thinking a group could be saved outside a project (can it?) but then I saw that groups are in pcbnew only and not in eeschema. Is there any way that groups as a feature added to eeschema could be a way out of this problem? Saving portions of a design for a different design would be really useful.
I think you do something not exactly as I.
It is not my idea working only at my PC and with my KiCad version. I was told here to do it that way about year ago and it worked in those time version and now it also works.
- A user downloads a project from somewhere and the libraries aren’t there.
Because they’re downloading a crap project where the designer didn’t include the libraries
- A user’s libraries get shuffled and now their entire project is broken.
Dunno, never experienced this
- A user opens up a schematic and it’s in a “crashed” state where KiCad has no idea what to do and prompts the user with a frustrating procedure to reconstruct/reload their missing symbols.
This would be a whole lot simpler if KiCad didn’t try to “rescue” shit and just gave you a list of missing files to track down.
Once a symbol is accurately created from a datasheet, it should go in a global library on your PC which all projects can pull from. Why would it change later unless there was a mistake
NO. Maybe there’s a mistake, maybe I want to rearrange pins to make my schematic flow easier, maybe I want to group/disperse GND pins. What I absolutely DO NOT WANT is for a change in one project to propagate GLOBALLY so I need to update a hundred other projects, maybe some of which haven’t been touched in years. THAT is how you end up with broken projects.
There’s some communication problem here. This seems to be contrary to what you said earlier:
@moderators OP had a question about cut & paste, and this thread has been hijacked by a library management discussion. Can this be split off in a separate thread?
Yes, I actually use my (local) libraries in what seems very similar to the new nightly flow. Except I keep them “cached” inside my project directory structures instead of within the schematic/pcb files themselves.
It still seems like a recipe for confusion to me to have these multiple levels of storage/association.
OK, now it makes sense.
This is a very valid concern, not only for eeschema but pcbnew.
If you use an incorrect symbol/footprint and you RTM then however wrong it is, it reflects the design at that moment in time and and such “correction” should not be applied to the design.
PCBnew embedded the footprint into the design and you have to explicitly request an update from the library. I hope eeschema has this as well as the symbols are now embedded.
This way a revision can utilise the updated symbol. IDEALLY some revision number is included (by default not an added field by the user) to provide an indication of what “version” of a symbol is in-use. Again ideally this number is auto-incremented by the symbol and footprint editor
The way KiCad V4 worked, with only references to some external libraries for all schematic symbols was very much *&^%$#@! Back then the only decent workaround was to make a project specific library for schematic symbols, and force all schematic symbols to point to that library.
Later the -cache.lib and the “rescue” systems were added as a (I assume) temporary and partial fix.
With KiCad-nightly V5.99 there is no need anymore for any of that. Schematic symbols become part of the schematic, and they stay there, unless the user does some specific action (such as update from library).
I understand this can be confusing, especially when you work with different versions of KiCad (I’ve been doing some small tests with KiCad-nightly V5.99, but no serious work).
In KiCad-nightly V5.99 there is no need anymore to do library management. With the embedded symbols the schematic has finally become robust and you will (should?) never see the [??] schematic symbols anymore.
If you wish so, you can add project specific libraries with parts, but it does not add much usefulness to a KiCad-nightly V5.99 project. I’d say that having the symbols both in a project specific library and in the schematic would even be counterproductive as it just adds more room for errors and outdated schematic symbol variants and thus leads to more confusion.
Indeed. In KiCad-nightly V5.99 Eeschema handles schematic symbols very similar to the way Pcbnew V5.1.x handles Footprints.
But also with the added function of viewing and changing library links with Eeschema / Tools / Edit Schematic Library Links (This is already present in KiCad V5.1.x)
Below a screenshot from this window in KiCad-nightly V5.99. The project is an old one which I started in a KiCad-nightly years ago (2015?), then got stuck because of bugs, later finished in KiCad V5, and now use in KiCad-nightly V5.99 for testing. Because of this history, all schematic symbols point to the project specific library “mumar_base_stm32”. For new projects I do not have to perform these library management steps anymore.
I just noticed the [ Map Orphans ] button in the Eeschema / Tools / Edit Schematic Library Links window. This may very well be that functionality, but I have not used it myself. At the very least that window has an overview of the libraries for the schematic symbols that are used (and has the functions to change them).
Also, just for completeness, a link to a description of how the -cache and -rescue files actually work:
In addition to deleting the Hierarchical sheet you must also delete the file i(with the same same as the Hierarchical sheet ) n the project’s folder because it is NOT deleted. Only the project’s reference to the Hierarchical sheet is deleted.
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