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Re: More default fields in schematic

 

No, that is one usage of it, some people likes to make the schematic their bom, some tools and services can also rely on such values.

Once again, the only people complaining are the ones that do not use it, and also the ones that will not be affected. Sure name it PartNum and use it the way you describe, you would never use any other tools to interact anyway, since that apparently is not your job... I only want there to be a common denomination for the the field names by default.

Because right now, anyone who actually uses the Schematic this way, which are quite many will always have to randomly define and abbreviate the same field, which just hinders anything smart to be done on top of it.

To better go with your thinking, I suggest you remove all the keybindings i KiCad, and then set them to what you want. That way you will get the current field experience. Everything is better with no defaults, amiright?

 -Kristoffer

On 2018-05-21 06:13, Jean-Paul Louis wrote:
That discussion once again shows how people misunderstand the concept of part number.
In a schematic, the part number attached to a RefDes should be unique AND NOT a manufacturer number.
   There should be a one to one relationship between a part number (symbol) and a physical shape, so the PCB will be a unit manufacturable only when the BOM is generated, and is one to one relationship between part number and Mfg part number.
The BOM is only for manufacturing assembly and procurement purpose
and does not need to be part of the design database, so Manufacturing can use Equivalent Mfg numbers for a given part number. That’s why many companies use internal numbering systems that are non picture coded and just sequential.
The relationship Symbol, Shape, Supplier is the responsibility of the master library, not the designers.

Just my $0.02,
Jean-Paul
N1JPL


On May 20, 2018, at 6:27 PM, Andrey Kuznetsov <kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I agree, I had the same issue when I was doing my board, I needed a field for all components, and I had to manually add it for every item, there was no way to add this field to all components at the same time or to have it add by default from the addition of a new component to the sheet.

Which reminds me, Cadence Designer has tools to manipulate fields on a large scale, whether to add, delete, show, hide, etc, this is something that would be nice to have in KiCAD, either that or a table of all components for the sheet or schematic and columns for each field, with ability to show/hide each cell individually.

I think the ultimate goal is to make the Symbol Table more useful, but that'll take to long for v5 so if Kristoffer's patch allows an easy way to add fields to all components or similar, I'd say do it because people will be pissed and waste their time doing it for every component in their schematic.

On Sun, May 20, 2018 at 3:01 PM, kristoffer Ödmark <kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I obvviously disagree, the correct solution would be to have both. This does not hinder that, its not even the same problem.

The problem is for everyone who want for example the Manufacturer Part Number will have to define a fieldname, which every time
results in them abbreviating it to something different. Hence nobody can work with Manufacturer Part Numbers.

Here is something similar, Imagine all of the colours in Kicad for all of the layers where white by default. Have fun defining all the colours yourself.
Maybe you want to define them yourself, nobody is stopping you now either, just get cracking.

How easy would it be for you to look at the board someone else made later and understand what is what? Maybe for some that is a better solution, but for me that
would be an extreme example of bad default values.

This is how the default fields are now, they are white, or more like see-throught, which makes life harder for anyone that
wants to contribute or create tools that interact with kicad, and as I previously said, this is only a default, you are still
equally able to add/remove or change the fields how you want to. But, tools like kibom or various other web-based tools can much
easier integrate to it, or at least support a default value as well. So for the majority of users, who doesnt change defaults,
the tool would just work.

I will reiterate, I do not care what they are named, I want a default field where I can put my manufacturer part number, amongs others.
The specific abbreviation or name does not matter, If i care, I can manually add/remove my own fields *JUST AS I DO NOW*, but for the people
who use it, it will be easier across projects, for the people that dont, It will not matter.

Sane defaults matter. A lot actually.

- Kristoffer

On 2018-05-20 23:40, José Ignacio wrote:
I dont like this, the right solution would be to allow for importing a default config into kicad for things like that, as different groups will have different policies.

On Sun, May 20, 2018 at 3:31 PM, Kristoffer Ödmark <kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

     The patch should only affect first startup, changes to the fields
     will be saved

     On May 20, 2018 22:18, "Seth Hillbrand" <seth.hillbrand@xxxxxxxxx
     <mailto:seth.hillbrand@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

         ​Hi Kristoffer-

         This feels like a management issue rather than a tool issue.
         If the user doesn't want any extra fields, how would your
         patch allow that?

         -S


         Am So., 20. Mai 2018 um 13:00 Uhr schrieb kristoffer Ödmark
         <kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx
         <mailto:kristofferodmark90@xxxxxxxxx>>:


             Hello!

             I will open this can of worms again, I feel that I have
             to. So from what
             I gather we have proffessionals as the main aim in Kicad.
             The reason I will open this issue again is that I feel we
             have a
             collaboration issue, maybe not a mayor one. But one
             nonetheless.

             We really need more default fields for our schematic
             symbols. Im not
             proposing required fields, I am *ONLY* proposing that
             there should be default fields added into the default
             fields settings
             tab. I am not proposing they need to be filled in the
             libraries, nor that people need to use them. only that
             they need to
             exist with a fresh install of kicad so that easy problems
             such as theese do not happen:

                  - Collaborators working on the same project will not
             create
             duplicate fields in libs/projects describing the same
             thing by mistake
                  - Projects that aim to interact or add to Kicad can
             assume that the
             Fields will exist, and will know what name/tag to look for
                    (bom exporters, price checkers, MacroFab, etc)
                  - Open source projects will be easier to collaborate,
             read and order

             The reason I think it is better to have the fields by
             default than the
             current solution to add them is that the majority will use
             what exists, and tools can support it from the very
             beginning, people
             with inhouse tools seems to dislike this, since they map their
             parts with an inhouse number - and then handle the
             information about the
             part there. From what I gather, this is not the majority, and
             these persons still modify the default fields settings.

             I spent maybe 30-40 mins checking the "made with kicad"
             projects, I
             found that the most common addition to libs and schematics
             are:
                  - Manufacturers part number, these were named widely
             different in
             projects, (BOM, MP, MPN, #mfg, or different syntaxes in
             the Value field )
                      I even saw a mix of these in the same project
             once, along with
             some people having the vendor id only.
                  - Manufacturer ( found some different languages though )

             more uncommon things was, Tolerance( 10%, 20pps), Ratings
             ( 1/4W, 85C,
             16V ), Vendor information and different Descriptions. They
             were named
             and abbreviated
             very differently accross projects.

             What I would like to see is these additional fields by
             default, but
             hidden from the schematic unless changed by user.
                  Tolerance ( used for setting tolerances of resistors,
             capacitors,
             oscillators, etc )
                  MaxRating ( field were one can specify max Voltage,
             Ampere,
             Frequency, or whatever the component needs )
                  Manufacturer ( For inhouse numbers, they could either
             just remove
             it, or use the company/group name )
                  MPN ( Maybe PartNumber could be used here, and people
             who use
             inhouse numbers use it aswell, I dont really care what its
             called, as
             long as its called something )
                  Vendor
                  Notes

             I would be all up for extra additions/removals, but I
             would prefer if
             the naming is not discussed, but rather just
             decided/agreed upon by
             someone in the lead team.
             The very least I think should be added in case the
             previous is to much are:
                  Tolerance
                  Manufacturer
                  MPN

             I attach a patch for the minimal set, tested on linux by
             removing the
             .config/kicad/eeschema file.

             - Kristoffer


             ps
             Some github files i reviewed, not all:
             https://github.com/AnaviTechnology/anavi-gardening/blob/master/MCP3002-I_SN.lib
             <https://github.com/AnaviTechnology/anavi-gardening/blob/master/MCP3002-I_SN.lib>
             https://github.com/jonpe960/blixten/blob/master/Blixten%20LED%20Device/Blixten.sch
             <https://github.com/jonpe960/blixten/blob/master/Blixten%20LED%20Device/Blixten.sch>
             https://github.com/paltatech/half-bridge/blob/master/pcb%20design/IGBT_board-cache.lib
             <https://github.com/paltatech/half-bridge/blob/master/pcb%20design/IGBT_board-cache.lib>
             https://github.com/pluggee/KiCADLibs/blob/master/sch/cap_smd.lib
             <https://github.com/pluggee/KiCADLibs/blob/master/sch/cap_smd.lib>
             https://github.com/jim17/memtype/blob/master/schematic_pcb/electronic_design_kicad/electronic_design_kicad.sch
             <https://github.com/jim17/memtype/blob/master/schematic_pcb/electronic_design_kicad/electronic_design_kicad.sch>
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kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx
Live Long and Prosper,
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