KiCad Library Symbol Editor - "Value" is hard linked to "Symbol name"
Description
Currently any changes in {Value} automatically change {Symbol Name} and vice versa (See screenshot attached).
Steps to reproduce
- Open Symbol Editor, select any local editable library with any component
- Edit -> Symbol Properties
- Try to edit {Value}, any change automatically is reflected at {Symbol Name} which is not useful at all.
Why those 2 fields are linked? In some cases they can be the same, but quite often it does not make sense.
For example, a resistor has field ${Value}="36.5K", but a custom component-oriented library can contain several resistors with the same value but different tolerance and package sizes. I.e. this approach represents a situation where a library is created not for an abstract resistor symbol, but for the set of specific resistors that are preferable; see below what I mean:
For example, a Library X has 3 resistors with the same value but different names:
-
Resistor A: ${Value}="36.5K" ${Symbol Name}="R 36K5 0.5% [0603]"
-
Resistor B: ${Value}="36.5K" ${Symbol Name}="R 36K5 0.1% [0402]"
-
Resistor C: ${Value}="36.5K" ${Symbol Name}="R 36K5 1% [1206]"
At the moment there is no way to name each resistor as above while keeping value the same - change in Name goes to Value and change in Value goes to Name, i.e. when you place such resistor from library you have to edit each value back to desired "36.5K" or "36.5K 0.1%":
Could entities ${Value} and ${Symbol Name} properties be unlinked from each other for library symbols in principle?
KiCad Version
Application: KiCad (64-bit)
Version: (5.99.0-12724-g8c8d66a181), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.1.5
libcurl/7.78.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.11
Platform: Windows 10 (build 19043), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Date: Oct 8 2021 00:01:04
wxWidgets: 3.1.5 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.76.0
OCC: 7.5.0
Curl: 7.78.0-DEV
ngspice: 35
Compiler: Visual C++ 1929 without C++ ABI
Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON