User Library Confusion

[proton49]

  Greetings, all. By way of introduction, I'm a lifelong electronic tech; recently retired engineering lab technician. I've soldered, populated, reworked, and troubleshot both through-hole and SMD boards, as well as point-to-point vacuum tubes chassis, so I'm no newbie to electronics. But, having said that, I am an absolute newbie to PCB layout software; completely clueless in many ways, so please don't be afraid of insulting me in that regard! I will have many questions in the near future, many of them probably humorous, or even absolutely hilarious, to those of you who know their way around Eagle.

  First question: I've successfully created my own user libraries, and placed them in the folder which Eagle created on installation: C:/documents/Eagle/libaries. I've learned how to go into those libraries and do the right-click/check "use" thing, after which those libraries now appear in the default library which appears when I click the "part" icon. But, when I exit Eagle, and then return later on, those libraries are no longer visible in the default library, and I've got to repeat the whole process to make them visible again. I've got no doubt that I'm making an absurdly simple newbie mistake here, but what is it? Running Windows 11, by the way, if that's relevant.

  Thanks -

[proton49]

  Okay, although I haven't solved the original problem, I've solved another, and learned a bit more about Eagle in the process. I discovered that Eagle wasn't going online when started, and in fact couldn't go online at all, having noted that no libraries were visible under the "available" tab. I applied the "manual DLL file replacement" fix, and now Eagle goes online when started, and I can now see the available online files. Progress, and learning.

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @proton49,

Welcome to the forums!! I commend you for continuing to learn and being open to learn about PCBs. So within EAGLE, the best way to make sure that all of the libraries you have put in use, stay in use, is to in either the sch or the brd you go to File > Save All. This makes sure that all of the current settings including the libraries in use get saved.

One thing I would like to mention as an aside, since you are learning now. As you may or may not have heard EAGLE has been End Of Life'd. So the path we are recommending for new designs moving forward is to switch to Fusion Electronics. It's based on EAGLE so everything you've learned so far will be applicable.

There's no rush, EAGLE will still be around till 2026 but something to keep in mind.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[proton49]

Hello, Jorge,

   Thank you very much for the tip, it was a very big help. I'm a reasonably intelligent guy, but sometimes I can be so dense that I swear I'm developing an event horizon.  I did indeed click "save all," but then, since I was only experimenting with the software, I closed out the blank schematic without saving it, thus losing the association of those libraries with the schematic. Now, clicking "save all" while the schematic page is open, I can see the selected libraries under the "in use" tab when I return to Eagle, as it should be.

  Thanks again—