Library Management--how to "clean-up" without risking corruption?

[Dave_Thomas]

So, I spent a week learning Kicad and creating a schematic, layout, and fabrication data for a low complexity pcb. All in all, it was much a much easier transition than I expected. And, lots of things are implemented better than Eagle, IMHO.

But, since I was originally “just kicking the tires”, I didn’t take care to organize new symbols and footprint libraries carefully. Now I want to organize them in a logical way rather than have them scattered around my filesystem.

But, I’m worried if I move anything, my schematic or pcb will have references to files that no longer exist. Maybe this will cause pcbNew or Eeschema to crash when they start up for the completed schematic, footprint association, and pcb files…

Is this an issue, or can I easily re-associate symbol and footprint files after moving them?

Is there a recommended way to go about this?

[paulvdh]

https://forum.kicad.info/search?q=library%20management%20category%3A19

Top of the list:

Library management in KiCad version 5

Disclaimer: screenshots taken in nightly from between version 5.0 and 5.1. Version 5.0.x looks slightly different. Version 5.1.x will look like the screenshots show. This is a detailed lecture. If you want to know how to simply add some assets you downloaded to KiCad then you can read the shorter tutorial https://forum.kicad.info/t/how-to-get-a-downloaded-symbol-footprint-or-full-library-into-kicad/19485/ Summary KiCad does not automatically detect libraries! There is no special library locati…

[BlackCoffee]

I had a very similar experience: created several projects in folders with custom names and locations.
Then, cleaned my computer’s files system and all Kicad links to my stuff went to hell.

I solved it by:

1. Following the file locations shown in the imaged below (which came from this Post)
2. Renaming the Folders with my stuff and made darn sure to Not use non-system-wide fonts. Previously, I used a ‘Bullet’ to lead the folder name but that went south real fast.
   I renamed my folders to start with the letter ‘z’ so they’d be at the bottom of the file/parts listing (for visual convenience).

Made a world of difference in my using Kicad. Now, all my stuff is as shown below…

[pedro]

@Dave_Thomas

Is this an issue, or can I easily re-associate symbol and footprint files after moving them?

Short answer: easily
As far as the symbol and footprint libraries keep their names. But you have to change their paths in Preferences->Manage symbol/footprint libraries.
Or if you are using the variables ${KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR} and ${KISYSMOD}, change them accordingly to the new paths.

[Rene_Poschl]

@pedro

As far as the symbol and footprint libraries keep their names.

If they don’t then the symbols are also easy. There is the edit symbol references tool that i explain in Converting KiCad version 4 projects to version 5 (Remap a project)

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For footprints, it is not this easy. One can fixup the schematic assignments with cvpcb but if one then updates the pcb the footprints would be newly placed so the easier thing might be to use the change footprint tool of pcbnew and then import this change back to eeschema (i have never used this workflow but i know it exists)