User-Friendly list (of user-created nets) in alphabetical order

[741]

I tend to label a net when either (1) it has partcular significance or (2) simply to help me navigate when routing.

I am wondering whether there is a way to help avoid the mistake I did: I accidentaly created two names for the same entity - “B” and “Base”. A logical error on my part, and now circuitry on “B” does nothing useful on the final PCB.

A simple alphabetical list of user-named nets might be a helpful tool. A clickable list even better.

This is how I would use the feature: Simply scan it visually in case something feels wrong (like "well now, what does net B do … ?)

[HiGreg]

You can do this from pcbnew from the Inspect > List Nets… menu item. It’s not immediately obvious to me how to get the same in eeSchema. You may be able to generate a netlist in eeSchema and view the output file.

[741]

Many thanks for that tip Greg. That is already useful.

Still, it would be extra-useful to be able to click a column heading to sort by that column. Maybe this ‘sort’ feature could be a general feature of columnar lists?

It would be a nice touch to be able to do this directly from Eeschema also.

[qu1ck]

If you use InteractiveHtmlBom plugin it can list, sort, search nets even highlight them on pcb

[ian-ross]

The InteractiveHtmlBom plugin really is a superb tool. I’ve been using it for assembly recently and it’s just great. I’ve also been doing some work to integrate it into Kitspace (might be deployed some time in the next week or two), and my biggest problem is that I get distracted by playing with it every time I should be testing my integration code! @qu1ck: do you have a Ko-fi or Patreon or something?

[741]

That sounds ideal - But II have InteractiveHtmlBom dated 2020-07-03 16:38:5, and I

do not see those extra buttons

[ian-ross]

You need to choose “Include nets” in the dialog that pops up when you run the plugin.

[741]

Thanks - I see no dialog. It just runs, then opens into Firefox.

[ian-ross]

Just to confirm: you have the InteractiveHtmlBom plugin installed in your KiCad plugins directory, you choose “Tools” -> “External Plugins…” -> “Generate Interactive HTML BOM” from the menu in pcbnew, and a new browser tab pops up right away? You don’t see this dialog:

If so, that’s not behaviour I’ve seen before. From what I’ve seen of the source to the plugin, it should always display the dialog…

[741]

Hi, here is what I see, and this also shows how it was installed - just copy it to the scripting directory, and KiCad sees it and shows the button.

So that is a somewhat different way to launch it. But using Tools|External plugins gives the same result as the button (no dialog).

I now realise the date 2020-07-03 is that of the .kicad_pcb - not the python script - will look again for an update to InteractiveHtmlBom…

Application: Pcbnew
Version: (5.1.6)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.66.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1d (Schannel) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.1.1) nghttp2/1.39.2
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: 1.71.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.66.0
Compiler: GCC 9.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

[ian-ross]

OK, that’s quite strange. I have a button in the tool bar too, and it pops up the dialog the same as the menu option (you’re right that they’re completely equivalent ways of running the plugin). One strange thing though: compare the icons (mine on the left, yours on the right):

Is that just a Linux/Windows difference, do you think? Or do we have different versions? If you run the plugin, go to your browser and mouse over the settings icon (the cog), you’ll see a menu that has the InteractiveHtmlBom version number at the bottom. Mine is v2.3. Is that what you have?

[741]

Ah, solved

1. It was the version of InteractiveHtmlBom

2. Because I left the other version lying about as xInteractiveHtmlBom, it found that.

Thank you again

[ian-ross]

Glad you got it working!

[qu1ck]

@741 yeah your plugin version was way old (pre 2.0 I think)
@ian-ross no patreon or anything, simple thanks is enough (also this is in the faq)