KiField - Hide All Datasheet fields in eeschema

Hello All,

I just utilized kifield to automatically insert all the datasheet and footprint information into my schematic. It worked beautifully. However, each component now features the link to the datasheet in ugly purple text making my schematic a mess. Any solutions to hiding all datasheet fields in one go? Is there something I can do within kifield?

I’m not sure, but give this a try.

In Eeschema, select “Preferences” > Schematic Editor Options.

In that window, select the Default Fields Tab.

Let me know…

That (afaik) only affects newly imported symbols from that point forward, not the ones already being in the schematic.

I don’t currently use KiField, so let’s summon the master … @devbisme :wink:

Yeah it seems you are right, no luck trying to hide the existing fields.

Worst case I can just take out the datasheets and keep them in a seperate spreadsheet!

Little patience… I bet Dave will reply within a day.
Can’t imagine that KiField isn’t able to take care of this…

If that fails you can go in the .sch file (with a script if there are more than 20 parts) and edit the visibility field yourself.
Should be the bold stuff…

…
$Comp
L CurrentDrv_PSSI2021SAY_SOT353 U101
U 1 1 56FD43D6
P 1500 7600
F 0 “U101” H 1500 8000 50 0000 C CNN
F 1 “CurrentDrv_PSSI2021SAY” V 1225 7575 50 0000 C CNN
F 2 “SOTx:SOT-353” H 1500 7600 10 0001 C CNN
F 3 “E:\Datasheets\Electronics\IntegratedCircuits\CurrentSources\NXP_LED-Driver-Transistor_PSSI2021SAY.pdf” H 1500 7600 10 0001 C CNN
F 4 “PSSI2021SAY,115” H 1500 7600 10 0001 C CNN “Manf#”
F 5 “NXP” H 1500 7600 5 0001 C CNN “Manf”
F 6 “_” H 1500 7600 60 0001 C CNN “Optn”
1 1500 7600
1 0 0 -1
$EndComp
…

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Just for the sake of completeness:

I had to do some editing which was annoying with the datasheet fields visible, so I temporarely removed them with kifield.

It seems that also the footprint field is visible now!

If you use KiField to enter a new field into a schematic, then that field is invisible. That’s hard-wired in.

If you use KiField to change the data in an existing field, then the visibility of that field is not changed from whatever it was previously.

From your problem description, I think you probably had existing footprint and datasheet fields that were visible but they were blank so nothing showed up on your schematic. Once you loaded values into those fields, then they were noticeable.

I’ll see if there’s an easy fix to make visibility settable within KiField.

I have a modified version of KiField that lets you show/hide component fields in a schematic. It can be installed with the command:

pip install -U git+https://github.com/xesscorp/KiField

In the spreadsheet, prefix a field value with “[I]” to make it invisible. Prefix it with “[V]” to make it visible.

Prefixing the header of a column with “[I]” will make every entry in that column invisible. Prefix with a “[V]” to make them all visible. Any values in the column prefixed with “[I]” or “[V]” will override the column heading.

Without prefixes, any new field is invisible by default. Existing fields retain whatever their original visibility/invisibility was.

New fields are given a position above the part reference. Existing fields retain whatever position they had.

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Great! Thank you so much! Ill let you know how it goes!

Hey Dave,

Sorry for the requirement of holding-my-hand on this, as it is very likely that this is an issue with me using it, not an issue with your soft.

I just finally got around to continuing to my project an went to download the new version of kifield. However, when I plonk the command into cmd (Win 10) I am hit with the error:

OK, you must not have git installed.

Instead, go to the KiField Github page. Once there, click on the green “Clone or download” button and select “Download ZIP”.

Go into the directory where the KiField-master.zip file is and execute the command pip install -U KiField-master.zip.

I went ahead and updated KiField on PyPi with the visible/invisible field feature. Update with

pip install -U kifield
2 Likes