topic Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View in EAGLE Forum

Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2020 05:57:23 GMT

Hello,

I hope all is well, and thank you for reading this.

Goal: to have certain attributes of a device be visible by default in the board view.

Things I've tried: after defining the attributes (in this case, T1 and T2) in the 'device' portion of a component in its library, I used the 'text' command to put down '>T1' and '>T2' onto the footprint of the device (at a location that I want relative to the footprint). This failed, as only the attributes of VALUE and NAME "respond" the way I want to following this course of action. I've attached pictures to show this issue:

Footprint of the device in the library:

An instance of the device represented in the Board View of a project:

As you can see, the attributes 'T1' and 'T2' are not visible by default.

Is there a way to fix this?

Thank you again.

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

mtl_asm — Tue, 19 May 2020 16:38:11 GMT

If the part has already been placed you may need to use "reposition attributes" to get it to refresh properly. After editing the part make sure also to save it and then update the library in teh board view (Library->Update...)

First click on reposition attributes in the left group of buttons, then in the top bar there will be a drop down box called "Reposition". Change this to "Restore default" if it is not already set to that option, and then click on the part you want to add the attributes to.

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2020 17:31:44 GMT

Thank you for your response! Is there a way to have 'Reposition to Defaults' be automatically ran for every item that gets added to the Board View?

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

mtl_asm — Tue, 19 May 2020 17:36:48 GMT

i *think* if you are adding new instances (using ADD command) they should already be placed with the defaults? is it not so?

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2020 17:38:58 GMT

Unfortunately no; only the VALUE and NAME attributes are placed by default.

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

mtl_asm — Tue, 19 May 2020 18:02:02 GMT

in this case an alternative could be to group all parts after they are placed, click reposition attributes, make sure teh correct option is picked in the dropdown menu as before, and then finally right click on the board and select "Reposition: Group". At least this way you can do them all in 1 click.

edit: also I think the attributes may only show up by default if they have a default value. so for example when you add T1 attribute in the device, for "Name" you put T1, for "Value" just add anything meaningful, but dont leave it blank. IIRC this is what triggers them to show up when you use ADD command

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2020 18:32:37 GMT

Thank you again. I tried giving the attributes values (in the device "window," I typed this into the command line: attribute T1 'TESTING'). The issue still remains.

Re: Issue with Default Attribute Visibility in Board View

mtl_asm — Tue, 19 May 2020 21:02:04 GMT

ah yes sorry this trick only works on items added to the schematic for whatever reason (ie attributes on the symbol, not footprint).

sorry for that. i don't know any other way to have them appear automatically. the easiest is just to group then reposition attribute the whole group, then all will appear.