kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Lorenzo" <lomarcan@...>]

> Okay, that might be my misunderstanding of the value field then. If I
> understand right, in the library editor Value is used for the
> component name, but in eeschema Value could be changed to be the
> actual value of the component? This makes a little more sense compared
> to how I thought it worked.

It's called VALUE exactly for that reason :D

> For a new user I think this is still very confusing. 

It's an industry practice. I would actually get confused if it was the way around :P

> look at this to see if there is anything that can be done. In eeschema
> even having a label showing the component library name would be a big
> hint that the value field can be edited and no longer relates to the
> component library name.

There is such a label actually. It's the 'chip name' in 'edit component'. You can edit that to change component, too! Drawing it would be a little redundant... like "Resistor" beside the drawing of a resistor :D

> Although I've never seen this question raised on the user list!

Probably because it's common behabiour

> > If you are suggesting saving a user defined set of default field names
> > to be created each time you create a new project than that would have to
> > be added, which by the way sounds like a good idea.

That would be a good idea but I would retain the ability to specify custom fields. For example I often add the 'vendor code' for prototyping that could be an RS code, a Farnell code, a Mouser code or a Distrelec code. Fortunately they are easily distinguished by their format so just a 'vendor code' is sufficient.

As a side note, the BOM lister seems to be somewhat broken about that...