Search function broken when searching for library names?

[DeBa]

Hello,
I have a problem with the search function for Libraries and i am not sure if this is a bug or not.
What is the problem:
When you look into a default symbol library like the 74xx library, you can see quiet a lot of different symbols:

But if you search for the library name for example 74x, then only some of the symbols are showing up.

I am pretty sure this was not always the case.
This is a problem for me, because i am using many custom libraries and cant find the parts easily anymore. I am currently running KiCad 8.0.4.

Any suggestions?

[RaptorUK]

If you search for 74x why would expect hits that don’t contain “74x” ?

[DeBa]

I don’t.
But I was expecting that the search function is able to find library names as well as symbol names.
So the library name would be one attribute the search algorithm is looking into.

[paulvdh]

Learn to use the wildcards. (Asterisk and question mark).

In your search, you are searching for the literal string 74x and the letter x has no meaning in KiCad’s libraries. In KiCad search syntax, an asterisk means “any or no characters” while the question mark means “a single character”. I.e:

This requires the number of characters to match, so you can be quite sure there is no 74AS00 in KiCad’s libraries.

This finds quite a lot of results. Partially because “7400 logic” is part of the keywords in some of the 74xx library.

[DeBa]

Thanks for your answer.
The wildcards partially solve the problem.
In my case, it would probably be an advantage if the library names themselves were also searched,
but perhaps this is not a common problem, since i have structured my library differently.
Most of my custom parts are grouped by manufacturer.

[paulvdh]

Some of KiCad’s libraries are also broken down by manufacturer. For example connectors from Harting, Harwin, Hirose, JST Phoenix. Microcontrollers also have libaries sorted by manufacturer. For other parts (For example TTL IC’s) such an organization does not make sense at all.

Some have generic symbols, but specialized footprints (connectors). Other have specialized symbols, but generic footprints (Many microcontrollers and other IC’s)

Part of the problem is the big number of libraries I guess it’s getting time to improve the library tree system. (I count 47 footprint libraries for connectors, 63 symbol libraries for MCU’s), but more levels may also result in more difficult to search.

Maybe more separation between default libraries, personal libraries and pinned libraries would help.

KiCad searches both for symbol and footprint names, and also for “keywords” you can add to footprints and symbols. Maybe you can do more with those keywords.

And you can search for partial strings. “4hc3” matches both 74hc373 and 74hc36.