Understanding multi sheet schematics

As a lucky user of A0 sized DesignJet Plotter, it was always possible to keep the complete schematic of one PCB in one page. For several reasons, I start now to play around with multi-page projects. As far as I understand, multi page schematics are only possible in Kicad by using hierarchical schematics. If there is only one sub-level below the root schematic, the project is considered as a „flat hierarchy“.

I am able to create additional sheets from the root level. For each sheet a kicad_sch file appears in the project directory as it is not stored in the s-expression of the root file. If I manually rename such additional file, I receive error messages for opening the root schematic because of broken links. The file names are created with „Place-AddSheet“ and I am able to edit and navigate between the sheets by click to the symbol on the sheet property box in the root and going back using the arrows in the toolbar.

As Kicads project manager is already a typical tree view, I also expect to navigate between the schematic sheets using this tree view. The sub-page name appears in the drawing sheet frame but does not appear in the project tree view. Something wrong with the project or wrong understanding of this multi-page feature ?

For above screenshoot, there is a root page wago.kicad_sch and a file wago/Toore.kicad_sch but only the root name appears in project navigator.

image

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going back using the arrows in the toolbar

look carefully at the tooltips for icon with the left/right arrow in the top-toolbar. These are not for the next/previous subsheet, but these are buttons for the subsheet history.

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Thanx, so far everything seems fine and cntl-h displays a new tree inside the schematic editor instead the project file tree.

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