How can I revert a version of a managed Library?

[stephen.cholvat]

I accidentally deleted a component in a managed library and pushed it to the cloud. How do I revert it and get back to the previous version?

[rachaelATWH4 · Accepted solution]

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@stephen.cholvat wrote:

I accidentally deleted a component in a managed library and pushed it to the cloud. How do I revert it and get back to the previous version?

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Hi Stephen,

Unfortunately the managed library system is not a fully fledged version control system so you are unable to revert to an earlier version which is one of the reasons I don't use managed libraries, as they've also been squirrelled away locally too so you can't have local version control either....

The best I can think of is if you have that part in a design you can copy it back to the library with the following procedure:

1) Open the target library in the library editor.

2) Open the design containing the part in question.

3) From the schematic editor right click on the part.

4) In the resulting context menu click 'Copy Device To Library'.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if there's any indication of when there will be some kind of version control available for managed libraries. This seems like an extremely useful feature...

I was actually going to start looking into managed libraries now that it is possible to share them, but with this information, I might think otherwise...

[rachaelATWH4]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was actually going to start looking into managed libraries now that it is possible to share them, but with this information, I might think otherwise...

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Well they certainly are a lot more useful now they are sharable, the lack of revision control is an issue though and something to keep in mind but I think with care it's now reasonable to be able to use them for some things. Just keep that lack of revision control in your mind at all times and check, double check, and then triple check before pushing changes which might be problematic.

I hope they do something to alleviate this issue soon. My preference would be to be able to locally version the source managed library files using GIT so maybe not having your own personal libraries squirrelled away would be a good option to alleviate the issue. It makes sense to do this for the Autodesk curated standard libraries, but to bury your user generated files where they are a pain to backup/version control is a big fail IMHO.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[Anonymous]

We're currently using git for library handling, but it's a little clunky (requires another tool, it's not completely automatic, it's hard to merge libraries etc). I have high hopes for where this can go in the future, because I think the idea is very good

[stephen.cholvat]

That's frustrating, on the surface they make it look version controlled, but then don't actually give any of the functionality...

Unfortunately I'm forced to use managed libraries since I'm using the fusion 360 integration with my mech team and that requires managed libraries to store the CAD files. I guess I'm just stuck with this half-baked library management system until Autodesk figures out how to make it proper version control.

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @stephen.cholvat,

I hope you're doing well. We are working on the version control aspect of managed libraries, hope to have something to share on this front in the coming months.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Great to hear that you're working on the better version control support for managed libraries! The shared managed library in a collabortive environment will is a feature with great potential. Unfortunately, it's not there quite yet. I have a few requests (concepts) that I would really like to see in the future (basically various git-concepts) that I think would improve collaborative possibilites a lot:

- Version rollback (as mentioned)

- Proper version timestamp would be nice. Currently, the only timestamp is one date, rather than time (hour/minute). This is probably a very easy improvement to implement on library.io

- Diff functionality between versions. Basically a way to see what's different between two library versions (which components have changed and how). This is already implemented for merge conflicts (if your changes on a component are different from recently pushed changes). It works OK currently, but it would be very good to be able to open the two components side by side and compare them directly.

- Approval/review functionality. Similar to pull-requests in software. Someone else needs to approve what the changes you have made to the library before you can actually push your changes to the library.

[moritz.geier]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is any update on this Subject, seeing as it is already two years and I heard nothing about Version Controll

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @moritz.geier ,

I hope you're doing well. There is no change on this front at the moment. We have a procedure in case you need to restore a previous version of a library, but that's it for now.

Thanks for bumping the thread, I'll report it to bring it front of mind again.

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

Best Regards,

[charlie_didear]

Jorge,

Thanks for the update.  Sorry to hear no progress has been made on this front but hopefully with your report this will be prioritized soon.

Regards,

Charlie

[eng_dpt_2]

Hi guys, @jorge_garcia 

Any news about this version control aspect of managed libraries?

jltharin

[charlie_didear]

While I patiently wait for Autodesk to make progress on managed library version control, what I have been doing is finding where the managed libraries are locally stored and copying them periodically.

By opening one of the managed libraries in EAGLE and clicking Save As, I was able to find that they were stored in Windows under my user's AppData directory (%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Roaming\Eagle\lbr).  They are all in hundreds of adsk.eagle_library_XX folder names.  Fortunately, the libraries I use all had a prefix, so I was able to use the File Explorer search to easily narrow down on all libraries that belonged to me with a search parameter like this: "-XXX*lbr". Then I select everything in this directory and copy it to a backup folder.

It's hacky, but it works.  I can see this being automatable with a script, but it sure would be nice to not have to resort to hacky methods to be able to locally backup our own files.

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @eng_dpt_2,

I hope you're doing well.  I don't have anything new to report on this front but managed libraries have an important role to play in the future, so things like this will be addressed.

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

Best Regards,

[geoffrey.enjolras]

Hello, can we get this procedure please ?

[jorge_garcia]

Hello @geoffrey.enjolras,

I hope you're doing well. Here's a procedure that may allow you to restore a previous version of a library.

https://contapi.circuits.io/123D-Circuits/libraries/ASSETID/export?type=eagle&datamodel_version=9.7....

In order to revert to a previous managed library version, replace ASSETID with the urn of the library. To use with EAGLE
set version to 9.6.3 and set version to whatever version of the library we need restore.

Then upload to library.io as a new version of the managed library so that the lineage can be preserved.

This is old, so it may not work now but it's worth a shot.

Best Regards,

[geoffrey.enjolras]

Hello @jorge_garcia,
I've followed the recommended procedure but encountered an "Error authenticating" message. Could you confirm if it's indeed impossible to restore a previous version of a library? If that's the case, could you explain the rationale behind Eagle’s versioning system? It seems counterintuitive to create a new version each time we modify a library if we’re unable to revert to a previous state.
Thank you for any clarification you can provide 😕

[jorge_garcia]

Hello @geoffrey.enjolras,

I hope you're doing well. Sorry to be a stickler but I have to make sure you edited the link correctly

https://contapi.circuits.io/123D-Circuits/libraries/ASSETID/export?type=eagle&datamodel_version=9.7....

Did you make sure to change the ASSETID, the datamodel_version, and X variables. If you didn't change all three then this is not going to work. Also make sure you have logged into library.io before using this link.

I agree that there should be an easy way to revert to a previous state. I've created a ticket for this, but my best guess is that a low request rate and other priorities in Fusion have led to not having a clean process for this. I'm not high enough on the totem pole to say for sure.

Best Regards,