I’m new to KiCad (not so new to electronics and CAD programs).
I followed the initial steps to create a new project but was confused that it doesn’t seem possible to define ‘local’ ‘global’ files. Unless mistaken, I can’t seem to have private symbol tables (I didn’t get to footprints yet), which I can share between my projects.
As far as I can find out, either libraries are the ‘system’ libraries (which I don’t want to touch, and which I think are readonly) and project libraries, as the name implies, specific to one project. I hit ‘are not writeable’ when trying to start editing a new symbol, in a (new) global library.
How can I define (eg.) symbol libraries, which I can share between my projects, but which are easily updateable? Eg. I’d like to define specific mounting holes.
You do want Global, but you have to choose, or create ahead of time a top directory in your own writable directories and navigate to it to create the new library. It’s discussed in the FAQ linked to above.
Unless you have no choice, native to your distro packages are preferred to appimages, snaps or flatpaks as there can be complications later. Creating new libraries should be possible though.
My first KiCad decision was that I will use only my own libraries and just created all of them as my first task before starting a first PCB. But I was doing it with KiCad V4 and things changed on the way from V4 to V8 so I don’t know how to do it now, but you certainly can use your libraries.
Once upon a time someone asked about KiCad directories organization and what I have written may be will be of any use for you so here it is:
I don’t know how to do it now as ways of doing it have changed
You can place “personal global” libraries anywhere you want.
But you need to tell KiCAD where they are.
Preferences → Manage symbol libraries
Preferences → Manage footprint libraries
I highly recommend that you use the path substitutions in:
Preferences → Configure paths
