"Summon" a footprint via crossprobe?

Layout
1

Not sure if that is the right word, what I’m looking for is a functionality that brings a footprint to you current location when you select it in the schematic editor. Right now, say I’m working on laying out a siwtching regulator on a large board. I’m zoomed in, working on placement and tracks of my regulator. I decide I need to grab say a specific input cap so I swing over to my second screen where I have the schematic open and crossprobing on. I select the desired cap there, when I go back to my layout screen it has taken me to the location of the footprint. (Which is great and the default behavior) What would love to have is a mode where is brings the footprint to me, where I’m currently looking rather than taking me to the footprint and making me work back to my previous location and zoom.

Does that already exist and I just don’t know the word for it? Is there some clever workaround that I haven’t found? Any info would be lovely.

Simon

2

Not 100% sure I get what you mean, probably because I just work on one screen :cry:

These are your options . . .

image

from here:

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3
  1. Turn off the Center view on cross-probed items and the Zoom to fit cross-probed items checkboxes. (Note: there are two cross probe settings, one set for each direction! You need to edit the cross-probing settings for the PCB editor.)
  2. Select a symbol on the schematic. It is now also selected on the PCB.
  3. Go to the PCB editor without clicking on the canvas. For example by hovering the mouse cursor and rotating the scroll wheel (Works on my linux box) or clicking on the taskbar [Allt + Tab] probably works too, there are plenty methods, but the trick is to not loose the current selection.
  4. In the PCB Editor, press m to Move the footprint, and then wiggle the mouse cursor a bit.

You can also do variants of this. For example in the schematic, draw a box around a few symbols that are related to each other, then go to the PCB editor (without loosing the selection) and then press p for “pack and move”. This attaches all selected footprints to the cursor, so you can easily put them on screen for final placement of those footprints.

4

Love it, that is exactly what I missed. The wiggle the mouse just enough to engage the move command is what I needed. Thank you also to Raptor, I needed to deselect the center view box.

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