I noticed that in my schematic when I click on a part and view the symbol properties the field “Library Symbol:” looks like
ADCBOARD-SCHDOC-rescue:AD7779ACPZ
Where AD7779ACPZ is the particular schematic symbol.
Why is it that the library is specified before the part number with a colon? I thought KiCad just looked through all of the libraries for a particular part number and used the first one it came upon.
Also, say that I want to change the name of my library ADCBOARD-SCHDOC-rescue. How can I do this without having to go in and change each of the schematic symbols?
Renaming libs has never been a good idea. In v4 it broke the schematic in a similar way as it would in v5.
In v4 you would simply loose the library from the list of libs. (Stored in every project file) Resulting in the same issue as you have with renaming it in v5. (Kicad only looked for the symbol in the list of available libs)
In v5 you even have the option to decouple the file name from the internal lib name. The name used in eeschema is the so called nickname of the library. This does not need to be the same as the name of the file. (This means you could rename the library on the file system and use that new name in the global lib table. But you can still point the old nickname to the new libname in the local table of old projects.)
Additionally there is a useful tool in v5 found in the tools menu. It is called something similar to “edit library references”. With this tool you can reassign which placed symbol should be connected to which symbol in the library.
You might be interested in some of the FAQ articles as you come from version 4:
I my point of view, V5 change try to help handle large symbol library more efficient. But take away a simple approach for user who don’t need to pull in massive number of library files. So I still think, V5 need to allows either style. User should be the one tell software which way are optimal and effective.
How is v5 hard for users of small setups. The lib managers are a lot easier to use than the old searchpath nonesense. I think this missconception comes from the believe that one needs path variables which is not true at all. Simply point directly to the file using the lib manager and be done with it.
The browse button below the list of libs takes care of everything you need to add a library. Or even easier use the “add library” button of the symbol editor. That one even hides the fact that there even is a library table.
I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll tel what I have done.
You have the …-rescue lib so I suppose when opening your V4 project KiCad couldn’t find the right libraries so he made a rescue lib and referenced parts to it.
I had only one V4 PCB.
When V5 was close to be released I have tried what would be if I open my V4 project and found that in V5 all my symbols containing ‘/’ char in their name are lost. I reported a bug and got info that it is not a bug, but new feature of V5
Under V4 I have changed all my symbols like 4u7/10V to 4u7_10V.
Then V5 comed, but I had no time.
Last week I deleted V4 completely from my PC (including User\AppData\Roaming\kicad - it is in Windows, I don’t know others) and installed V5.
I opened standard kicad.pro and edited library lists (symbol and footprint) to contain my libraries I used in KiCad V4.
I opeden my V4 project and KiCad found all symbols in my original libraries so my schematic references to right parts in right libraries and I don’t need to change enything.
