@dangerous:
Before I completely read your post, can you copy and post your complete KiCad version here.
It is:
Help / About KiCad / [Copy Version Info]
Edit: You say the Symbol tree is not visible.
What does it look like? Please post a screenshot of the Symbol Library Editor.
That is kind of normal for an empty library (It can not display a symbol below it as there is none.)
Right click on the library name should however give you a context menu that allows pasting your previously copied symbol. (No need to even click the plus.)
@paulvdh the left clicks on the library or symbol (source or target) are unnecessary clicks. One can right-click directly and the same context menu will appear. (reading your post again leaves me to believe that you did not mean select as in left click it but more a choose a library of your liking as the target. Meaning this is not a kicad action but a user action.)
@Rene_Poschl: Pleas forget my rambling about the libraries. Copying symbols to a personal lib is a way I can work with, and it is a lot better than having multiple versions of the same custom symbol in different projects. Been there, done that. It is a pain to try to extract those symbols from different projects and put them in a proper lib.
Apart from that I do not really see the difference between “a project specific lib” and “project-cache.lib”, but this is probably a hole in my knowledge of KiCad. I trust that the developers know better than I do and adjust accordingly.
@paulvdh
Here is the info:
Application: kicad
Version: (5.0.2)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.68.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.61.1
Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON
@Rene_Poschl As you can see the tree for the libraries is not visible once a component is loaded and copy is pressed.
Thanks again.
You need to empty the live filter* after copying the original symbol (or maybe even better: replace it with your target library name to avoid needing to search for it)
*) The live filter is the field where you entered the symbol name right now.
I edited the text of the copy symbol part and added a screenshot and remark:
The cache lib is not intended to be touched by the user. KiCad automatically copies a symbol from its library into the cache lib as soon as you add it to the schematic. The cache lib is then used to determine if a symbol needs to be rescued (meaning it is there as a safety measure to allow you to make changes to the library without the danger of damaging your projects.)
In other words: You can damage your project by touching the cache lib. It is entirely your fault if you do so. (The cache and rescue stuff is quite fragile. This is one of the reasons why we are extra strict regarding changes to the official symbol library.)
@paulvdh
@Rene_Poschl Thanks to both of you for sticking with me on this one, and restoring some sanity to my workspace.
Just that one bit of knowledge that was missing has made all the difference.
From the last post, I now understand the purpose behind write protecting the libraries, and it does seem an easier method to work with the symbols, once the way to actually do the editing is understood.
I must also add that the footprint libraries seem to be much easier to add or find than they were in previous versions,or maybe I really have just got used to that part of the program.
Thanks again I now have a brand new BFY90 sat in my own personal library.
Hello again.
My nice new BFY90 has the wrong footprint as it was originally a BF199, so I click the footprint field and select the TO-72-4 footprint from the list, which in V4.0.x updated the field in the component. Now a message flashes up and when the footprint viewer is closed the screen shot below is produced:
Just found that if I close the wxwidgets error message from windows task manager, the footprint does update in the component.
I am not sure why the error is occurring in the viewer, presumably some problem with the 3D viewer which I have never really used.
Try to “Cancel” that dialog, what happens?
Those messages come from wxWidgets (the UI library) but most often it’s a bug in KiCad. Many bugs have been fixed since 5.0.2, can you try nightly builds?
@eelik Hi, Thanks for the response.
Cancel works and the footprint updates. I just did a re-install of V 5.0.2 as there were a number of posts with similar issues from early 2018 with V 5.0.0 that seem to have come from the installer package, but it still reacts in the same way.
I will try a nightly build very shortly and respond.
@eelik I tried the last build I could find and the error is fixed. The footprint is selected with no error messages.
Thanks.
Having finally got to grips with the new way of doing things, I must confess that V5 is a big step up over V4, so I wait for V6 or even V5.0.1 with bated breath, and wonder what we will have to re-learn again.
Thanks for all your help in this post.
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