Library creation, names, values, rotation

[tracy.wynn]

Hi,

I am a new Eagle user, coming over from Altium. I'm struggling with library creation. I have a specific question, which I will follow up with a related, but more general one.

My specific question is this: I have created a new library for a line of ceramic-core chip inductors. When creating new designs I would like to be able to select specific components, by part number, so that as I build a schematic I am also capturing the information needed for the BoM. To facilitate this, my library is structured such that there is a specific device instance created for each part number likely to be used from the manufacturer's part series. Then that device is linked to a footprint that is likely to be shared across multiple devices. I could have used a shared schematic symbol, as well, but this would required me to either enter the value of the component every time I selected it, so instead I opted, in the symbol definition, to put ">NAME" on the tNames layer and on tValues, instead of ">VALUE" I put the value of the part ("4.7uH, 2%," for instance). I find, though, that if I place this schematic part and then rotate it, the reference designator and value text also rotate, which is not desired (and is not common practice, in my experience). I can select the reference designator and manually rotate it, but since I have not used ">VALUE" to make the value text user-definable, I cannot select it and rotate it. Other components I created, which do have user-definable value text fields, do allow me to do this. So... how do I either define new libraries differently so that I can create clean, annotated schematics, or, how do I manually fix this rotation problem?

My more general question is this: I suspect that the root of my problems here stem from how I am trying to use the libraries. I am trying to use an "Altium-like" model, in which libraries can be structured to aid in BoM creation, as I've described, but Eagle doesn't seem to like this way of working. Is there some information (tutorials, videos, etc.) that describe the design philosophy Eagle expects and supports? I'd really prefer to stop trying to bend a tool to work in a way it isn't designed to work simply because I'm used to working in another way. But, within some boundaries, I also need what I need on my output documents, so I need to find ways to make the tool produce that, or find another tool.

Any help available is appreciated.

Tracy