(Remap again) new symbol naming style still bugging my weird use case

I cannot help myself to not reporting this issue:

If any one having same thinking or issue, please vote for it.

I in questioning about how easy is it for 5.x version (because 4.x version have no issue) with case when you messing around with symbol library and library configuration table for:

  1. A symbol move from one library to other library
  2. Change library name mapping name
  3. Loosely schematic sheet - Mean the schematic sheet is not linked by the project, but it may need to be link manually sometime. Like to switching between designs style, difference design for simulations so you don’t have to create 1 project for 10 simulation sub circuitry.

Lossely relative bug (please vote if you like it):


The remap feature is for getting v4 projects transferred over to v5. It has little to nothing to do with what you describe here.

Projects that used your original symbol will need rescuing (The rescue dialog will open when you open the project.)
This will require the cache lib to be intact.

In general moving stuff around is to be avoided. Make a proper organization from the start and stick with it. (Yes one will always get better ideas later on but be sure you are aware of the downsides of doing reorganizations of libraries.)

What do you mean by that? Do you mean renaming a lib? Well this has the same effect as point 1 but with more than one symbol at a time.
This is however easier to solve than the above case of moving a single symbol. You can add the library under its old nickname to an old project and use this to kind of get back to the original case. (Dirty hack but well if you must, …)

Another option is to note down your changes and write a script that can update old schematics with them. (We did something similar for footprint assignments of the symbols in the official lib. We simply had a json file holding the mapping from old name to new name and let it loose on the symbol libraries. I am sure a similar approach could work for projects as well.)

I think this is completely unrelated to the other two points. I would further guess that what you suggest is a workaround for an as of yet undefined underlying problem. (The core problem of “solution” based feature requests. The reporter already made up their mind how the particular problem should be solved and therefore describes the “solution” instead of the problem.)

For a well defined feature request include why think you would need 10 subcircuits. Maybe there is a much better solution than using subcircuits in the first place.

Please. The use case I’m mention it within the same version. I not quite only from 4 to 5. It also 5 in 5.

How many time had to keep your house the same way as it was you bough it?
How many time people have move from Windows versions.
And How many time we had move from difference KiCad version?
Are you having a power of for see the future?

No - I mean both. Either change the library file name or “nickname” on the library configuration. In the case of change library file name, it is easy. In the case of change the library nickname, or worst library global nickname. In 4.x version, we typical don’t event need to worry. Why do we in 5.x ?

How many user as designer like to write script? How much time much would this take vs. 0 time in 4.x ?

I going to be a long explain for you (I guest) So I would left it what it is. I simply hope some one would have such same use case as me. It is my solution that help me effective work with KiCad and simulation 10 thing in my design. I use it as a Tool, and to me I will bend the Tool to my will, not the other way.

The v4 way had massive downsides to users. It required every symbol name to be unique over all libraries. Does the new system come with downsides? Yes it does! Like everything in technology there are tradeoffs. In this case the tradeoff was deemed to be worth it. It will simply mean you need to adabt to this new problem or stay at v4.


One option would be to request that kicad keeps track of changed symbol or library names and offers updating projects for you. I doubt something like this will get high priority to implement but would be a better solution than going back to the old days.

An even better solution is what will be done with v6. By including symbols in the schematic file itself. This way old projects are decoupled from the library like the footprint side already is.

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I do understand this. But it is unexceptionable excuse for me.

No it can be much simple that this. I’m a programmer too. But I’m rather not to going into the detail of how without actual code it.

I just thought of a possible solution. Right now the feature set of the rescue dialog is quite limited. It checks if the exact symbol name exists in the given library and if not simply take the symbol from the cache.
It could instead offer to search all libraries for possible replacement symbols (for example by using only the name or even a user defined search). At the end the dialog could then update the schematic as selected by the user.

There is however a catch. This would be classified as a new feature and can not be added to v5 for this reason. V6 will however no longer require the rescue dialog as symbols will be included in the schematic file. Meaning it will make very little sense to invest development resources into the rescue dialog.


The new file format will however require a “update symbol from library” feature (Similarly to the current way how it is done for footprints). The above mentioned feature could be implemented as part of this feature to help getting symbols forward to changes in the library.

Oh, I wish! :slight_smile: We’ll always need to open v4 files, so this dialog will never go away. The smart search is a good idea. We would definitely need to match on pin type and location. Maybe ordering potential matches by visual diff.

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Visual diff could indeed be an additional help.
The pin type and position stuff could simply be an additional filter option to aid selecting the correct symbol. (Like the filters in the cvpcb dialog for seleting footprints)


And yes i am aware that the rescue stuff will still be needed for getting old files into v6 but i guess the need to develop the rescue feature further will be much reduced the farther away one gets from the versions that require it for their own file formats.

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I had do that too in the pass. But well, I have no idea how it would be good spending time for doing this for all 20 projects. When 1 symbol move. But V6 sound like have all figure out, so I guest I will be patient wait and see again.
Thank for the info.

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