No Capacitor section in Add Symbol

[tseyfarth]

Hello all,

I may be simply crazy, but I cannot find any Capacitor section when searching. There’s no Capacitors in the symbol library.

What am I doing wrong??

Tim

[retiredfeline]

They are under Device.

[tseyfarth]

Thank you!
That’s a strange place to have them - very nondescript. Do you know the rational to have them there?

Thanks,
Tim

[gkeeth]

The device library contains generic devices - resistors, capacitors, inductors, generic transistors, etc.

[mf_ibfeew]

@tseyfarth : for such issues you could use the filter-box in the symbol chooser.
Try to use only parts of a search-string and than refine the search with adding more letters.

[BobZ]

I seldom use the standard library except sometimes as a starting point for a symbol in my personal library. But I wonder what symbols do NOT represent devices? I can imagine that power flags are not devices, but I share the opinion that it does not sound like a very useful classification.

I remember seeing some post World War 2 documentary film where the testing of an atom bomb was being shown. The film referred to the bomb as a “device.”

[retiredfeline]

The vexing problem of taxonomy will be with us until the end of civilisation. Device is simply a category for anything that does not have enough types to warrant a top level category. So use search to cut to the chase, er capacitor. But this doesn’t help people who are used to another name like condenser.

Fortunately once you know that where the generics are you can find it quickly next time. Perhaps the interface should also have a deque of recently used symbols.

Or maybe one day we’ll have a thought driven interface which will bring up the symbol you think of.

[tseyfarth]

Hi retiredfekine,

I actually tried searching with Cap, cap, capacitor etc. I was using the symbol browser. The only result was "Regulator_SwitchedCapacitor… not what I wanted or expected.

I do appreciate and thank you for your feedback!

Tim

[retiredfeline]

Hmm strange, I got a similar result to mf_ibfeew with the symbol chooser.

[mf_ibfeew]

. I was using the symbol browser.

The search in symbol browser and symbol chooser works different.

symbol chooser (from “Add symbol” icon in right toolbar): the search-string is searched across all active+visible libraries
symbol browser (from top toolbar):

• there are two filter-fields
• the search-string in the left filter-field is to filter the available libraries (according to library-nickname)
• the right search-field is to filter the results from only the current selected library.
• a third option is to use the symbol-editor (additionally to symbol chooser and symbol browser): the search-field in the symbol editor also searches all available libraries. Than in the symbol-editor you can use the “Add symbol to schematic” (top toolbar). The advantage is: the symbol-editor can permanently stay open alongside the schematic/board. So it also displays always the last used/added symbol, reducing the possible need to scrolling until the desired symbol. Disadvantage: it opens the possibility to accidentally modify a symbol.

summary: if you don’t know the exact library: use the symbol chooser instead of the symbol browser.