Symbol editor: show alternate pin definitions in pin table
Description
Alternate pin definitions are a powerful feature for configurable parts, but handling more than few of them is rather tedious because the definitions can only be accessed for a single pin and not in the pin table.
- The pin table doesn't show whether pins have any alternate pin definitions at all. This might lead to unexpected results or logical conflicts.
- There is no possibility to show, edit or add alternate pin definitions from the pin table. This is the fastest way for data entry and verification, especially since a lot of data sheets show this information as one or two tables. It's also the only way for editing multiple pins at once.
I think extending the pin table similar to how the schematic editor's "edit symbol fields" dialog handles custom attributes might be the best way: when opening the pin table, get the maximum number of alternate pin definitions in this part ('n') and add 3*n+1 columns (name, type, style for each definition plus one empty set for adding another alternate definition).
I'll probably do some experiments to find out how this could be implemented and test the work flow.
KiCad Version
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.99.0-12751-g593324bbaa-dirty), debug build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.5
libcurl/7.74.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1l zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 libidn2/2.3.2 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.0) libssh2/1.9.0 nghttp2/1.43.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 5.14.0-2-amd64 x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, , x11
Build Info:
Date: Oct 10 2021 14:16:11
wxWidgets: 3.0.5 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.74.0
OCC: 7.5.1
Curl: 7.74.0
ngspice: 34
Compiler: Clang 11.0.1 with C++ ABI 1002
Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
KICAD_STDLIB_DEBUG=OFF
KICAD_STDLIB_LIGHT_DEBUG=OFF
KICAD_SANITIZE_ADDRESS=OFF
KICAD_SANITIZE_THREADS=OFF
Edited by Ian McInerney