Ver 7 to 8 file libraries copy

[MaxHeadRoom]

Was sorry to see that when migrating to v8, the custom libraries are not automatically copied over, is the method still the same as it was in earlier versions?
Is the a very simple method?

[paulvdh]

You can use a text merge program such as meldmerge to copy settings between different KiCad versions. More about this in:

V8.0 :imported settings from 7 - missing libraries and plugins

All the configuration things are in the configuration directory, and all files are text based (most often S-Expressions). You can use a program like meldmerge to look at differences in the configuration directory, and also copy texts between files. If you start with a directory comparison: > paul@cezanne:~/.config/kicad$ ls -hl > total 48K > drwxrwxr-x 2 paul paul 4,0K Jul 27 2022 2022-07-27 > drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 9 2023 2023-02-22_7.0 > drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 4 17:54 …

[retiredfeline]

I take advantage of the fact that the library tables are text files, so I use this method which is very Linux and vim specific. I also take advantage of the fact that I use variables with _USER_ in it for library prefixes.

$ cd .config/kicad/8.0      # haven't actually got 8.0 yet but should be the same
$ vim sym-lib-table
# go to bottom of file with G
:-r ! grep _USER_ ../7.0/sym-lib-table
:wq

And similarly for fp-lib-table.

It would be good if in future user entries in the tables could be kept separate from the system ones for easy import. Maybe there’s a Gitlab issue for it; I haven’t looked.

[Harjit]

can you explain what the VI commands do? Sorry, I’m not as VI savy.

[retiredfeline]

Run the command grep _USER_ ../7.0/sym-lib-table and insert the output just before the last line, which will have a single ). As I said, this only works if you use _USER_ in the path of the library like I do. Most people have a user path there so you need to choose a suitable grep string. This is the kind of user library line I have in my sym-lib-table.

  (lib (name "Nixie")(type "KiCad")(uri "${KICAD_USER_SYMBOL_DIR}/nixie.kicad_sym")(options "")(descr "Nixies"))

Do recognise that it’s not necessary to use vim for this task. The goal is to insert the user library lines from the old table into the new table. This can be done in myriad ways, including just reinstalling them using the KiCad library path manager. I’m just taking a shortcut.

[ML9104]

I’m probably dense here, but…
We’re talking about custom libraries, so isn’t it just a question of setting the paths in V8?

[retiredfeline]

@retiredfeline

just reinstalling them using the KiCad library path manager

As I said, this is probably the most straightforward way if you are not adept with the CLI.