Today is another day that I’m flabbergasted at the level of non-intuitivity of Kicad. Has any developer even heard of ‘the path of least surprise’?
So, I spent a whole day scanning schematics and entering symbols in my own symbol library, and everything worked fine, nothing that bothered me. It was a global library and alphabetically in the long list in the Symbol editor. It’s saved in a certain directory and the .lib and .dcm files are there.
Today I wanted to use the library and noticed it was gone from the list. I tried to add it to the list and it only gives me the option of selecting a directory. So I select the directory, and it adds a library named after that directory (would-be WTF#1 but turns out to be designed behavior). I expected it would scan and find my .lib files there, but when I expand the tree named after my directory, it’s empty! (WTF#2). I tried to remove it but couldn’t find an option anywhere and simply pressing ‘del’ doesn’t work. (WTF#3).
After RTFM-ing I found I had to go to ‘Manage Symbol Libraries’. I couldn’t find it anywhere in the symbol editor, but selecting ‘Manage Footprint Libraries’, which looked out of place in the Symbol editor, took me to the Symbol libraries (WTF#4). There I first couldn’t find the library named after my directory, and after many times spitting around, finding that the libraries are stored in a file named ‘fp-lib-table’ I found that in the file it’s at the bottom. And lo and behold, it’s at the bottom too in the Symbol libraries list! It was there all along, just not sorted the same way as the tree list in the Symbol editor! (WTF#5).
So I looked in the manual again how I could add .lib/.dcm files manually, found a section talking about adding multiple libraries using ctrl, so I was relieved (and expecting it meant ‘multiple .lib files’). The text, and screenshot, explain it opens a “File browser like tool”, but when I click this button, I get a Folder browse window. This is even different from the ‘Add library’ option in the Symbol editor which opens a regular File browser configured for only selecting folders, but the Symbol libraries opens a bonafide folder selector!? (WTF#6). (Side note: I hate those things because I can’t paste a path from the clipboard) Of course I tried this and it didn’t work.
So how do I add my .lib/.dcm files if selecting the folder they’re in doesn’t work like the manual says? (WTF#2)
First, please verify what version you are using? The best way is to go to the About window, click on the button at the bottom labeled “Copy Version Info” and then do a clip-board paste (CTRL-v) into your response here.
For example (and to provide context for the rest of my answer) here is my version information: (And as of this writing this is the latest official stable version available for Windows. Version 5.1.5 is on the horizon, but not available yet. Any other version is either an older and unsupported version, or a newer development version that may have weird bugs and incomplete features.)
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.4)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.68.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.61.1
Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013
(Note, there is a known bug on Windows computers where the OS incorrectly identifies itself to running processes so that is why on my Win10 system the platform is reported as Win8…)
I think you are confusing symbols with footprints. In my symbol editor I see the ‘Manage Symbol Libraries’ menu entry:
Any changes I make in the Symbol Libraries window will go into the ‘sym-lib-table’ in my %APPDATA%\kicad folder. Changes to the Footprint Libraries window will go into the ‘fp-lib-table’ that you are referring to.
