Suggestion: net names automatically named after pin names

[samykamkar]

Instead of N$1, N$2, etc, it would be great if net names were named after the first pin they were attached to. If you have two ICs with the same pin name, then I would expect "PIN" and "PIN$2" (or similar). When joining two nets from two ICs, I would expect either the names to join together (eg "PB0" and "SCL" become "PB0-SCL") or some other default behavior, such as the name of the net being set to the net that I started from (rather than connected to).

I do see how it could be confusing if you have another net somewhere else that you explicitly named the same as, say, "SCL" so that it would be connected together, but then you connect "PB0" to "SCL" -- in that case, the question is do all "SCL" nets change to PB0-SCL? I think that would make sense. But if you had one net named PB0 somewhere, and another named SCL somewhere else, along with two other nets of PB0 and SCL that you're about to join together, does that mean all of them get renamed PB0-SCL, making an additional connection that wasn't done before? I also think it's reasonable, but perhaps may want to prompt the user.

I'm probably missing some issues that might arise but happy to discuss.

Thanks!

[rachaelATWH4]

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@samykamkar wrote:

Instead of N$1, N$2, etc, it would be great if net names were named after the first pin they were attached to. If you have two ICs with the same pin name, then I would expect "PIN" and "PIN$2" (or similar). When joining two nets from two ICs, I would expect either the names to join together (eg "PB0" and "SCL" become "PB0-SCL") or some other default behavior, such as the name of the net being set to the net that I started from (rather than connected to).

I do see how it could be confusing if you have another net somewhere else that you explicitly named the same as, say, "SCL" so that it would be connected together, but then you connect "PB0" to "SCL" -- in that case, the question is do all "SCL" nets change to PB0-SCL? I think that would make sense. But if you had one net named PB0 somewhere, and another named SCL somewhere else, along with two other nets of PB0 and SCL that you're about to join together, does that mean all of them get renamed PB0-SCL, making an additional connection that wasn't done before? I also think it's reasonable, but perhaps may want to prompt the user.

I'm probably missing some issues that might arise but happy to discuss.

Thanks!

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Hello,

I see where you are coming from on this... but... as a professional engineer who creates schematics daily I can see the huge potential for total screw up.... There is a very high chance of nets accidentally connecting together if you do this. Say if you had a number of similar circuits repeating... Even if it did warn you, eventually you're going to dismiss the warning by mistake and end up with an unintended connection.

Another issue would be with passives.... It would try and name the nets based on your passive pins (it's just a library part after all, EAGLE doesn't know what components actually are) and it would just be a pain.

There's nothing wrong with N$* names for a lot of signals as a lot of the time they are just a means to connect a bunch of assorted things together. If I have important signals I need to name, say if I want to have a bunch of I2C or SPI busses or other data busses between components then I use the bus functionality and then rip the appropriately named nets off the bus. I have a ULP which I wrote which helps me create and manage busses quickly so it's really easy to get a schematic drawn up with all the important things named.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[samykamkar]

Hey Rachael,

I see your point. Maybe a safe middle ground would be the ability to name all nets based off of an IC's pin names as a feature. This is just something I often do manually when using specific ICs (and will often name it based of the MCU), so it would be great to be able to right click the IC and 'set all net names to pin names'.

[rachaelATWH4]

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@samykamkar wrote:

Hey Rachael,

I see your point. Maybe a safe middle ground would be the ability to name all nets based off of an IC's pin names as a feature. This is just something I often do manually when using specific ICs (and will often name it based of the MCU), so it would be great to be able to right click the IC and 'set all net names to pin names'.

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EDIT: Just re-read your message and see your suggestion of right click on the IC... Yep agreed...

Yes, having a feature to tell it to name the nets off a particular IC would be fine, so long as it was an optional step, for example right click on the net and choose a name to attach to it from the IC's it's connected to... or as you suggest, on an IC and name nets from there.

Thinking about it, it's probably possible in ULP.... I might look at doing that later!

If I get something working I will pop it up here for you to try out 🙂

[rachaelATWH4 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I had a quick play with getting this working with ULP. Is this what you were thinking?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9zRjEtGRliZV3owSHB6MHB1NFU/view?usp=sharing

I tried to show this as an inline video in this message but these forums are being annoying and wont allow me to link a video hosted in my google drive. I need a youtube account is seems....

Let me know what you think.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[samykamkar]

@rachaelATWH4 Awesome! That would do it. Very cool with the right click context menu, didn't know you could add to that!

[rachaelATWH4]

I'll tidy the ULP up a little then I will pop it up here along with some instructions. I'll try and sort it tomorrow but it might be after the weekend.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[jorge_garcia]

Hi Rachael,

That's is pretty cool, I definitely think this is the type of feature that is best implemented as a ULP since it is really tailored to Samy's workflow.

Thanks for the all of the participation in the forums both here and elsewhere.

Best Regards,

[edwin.robledo]

Hi Rachael,

Thanks for the awesome post, you mentioned that you wanted to add a video to your post.  While editing or building a post you can link a Screencast video, it works really well. At the bottom of the post editor you will notice a Insert Screencast option. 

Thank you!!

Ed

[rachaelATWH4]

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@jorge.garcia wrote:
Hi Rachael,

That's is pretty cool, I definitely think this is the type of feature that is best implemented as a ULP since it is really tailored to Samy's workflow.

Thanks for the all of the participation in the forums both here and elsewhere.

Best Regards,

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Hi Jorge,

Yes I agree, ULP is the best solution for a lot of things like this. I have a bunch of utilities in ULP which I have added to the context menus and it works really well.

I was hoping to finish tidying up this one today but I didn't get time. I'll try and get it sorted out and attached here in the next few days so you can have a go with it and see what you think.

I think to be generally useful it needs to be a bit more configurable in how it works in some circumstances. I'm also going to extend it so you can do nets from the context menu and it'll pull the name from the pin driving it. If there is more than one option it would pop up a dialog to confirm which one to go with. Lots of ideas here and if you have any let me know and I will see what I can do to incorporate them 🙂

Best Regards,

Rachael

[rachaelATWH4]

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@edwin.robledo wrote:

Hi Rachael,

Thanks for the awesome post, you mentioned that you wanted to add a video to your post.  While editing or building a post you can link a Screencast video, it works really well. At the bottom of the post editor you will notice a Insert Screencast option. 

Thank you!!

Ed

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Thanks for the tip Ed. I just need to work out how to do a screencast! I can do a screen recording really easily on my Mac, just run up QuickTime and tell it to record, I'd need to investigate how to do screencasts. I'm sure it's easy though so I should look up how to do it!

Best Regards,

Rachael

[jorge_garcia]

Hi Rachael,

Screencasts are made using a tool Autodesk provides called oddly enough Screencast. You can download it from here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast. They have a Mac version.

It's pretty simple can it captures all of your clicks as you use EAGLE. Some Autodesk Products log commands while you are recording so as you watch the video you know exactly what commands the person was using.

Really makes things simple.

Best Regards,

[rg.jones]

Rachael, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to checking out a copy of your ulp.

[rachaelATWH4]

Hi All,

Here is a copy of the ULP so far. Please test it out and let me know what you think. There are things I want to add still to make it more versatile but it's in a reasonable state for some feedback.

To install the context menu entries:

run nameNet install

To rename a net from the EAGLE command line:

run nameNet oldName newName

For the correct functionality, any component you use to name connected nets needs to have the pins used for power rails to be set to pin direction 'pwr' otherwise they will end up renaming the supply rails as well which is not a good idea. This is an area that possibly needs some extra thought.

As this is now being put in the public domain I have added a license and disclaimer to the file.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[samykamkar]

Rachael, 

Awesome! Thanks for creating and sharing this with us! Going to test it shortly.

[rachaelATWH4]

No problem, it was a fun to get going and something I will find useful myself sometimes too when it's fully finished. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions, or you manage to break it in some way let me know and I will try and get it sorted.

I'm probably going to create a repository in GitLab to put some of my EAGLE utilities into so I don't have to try and keep things updated on this forum thread. I'll let you know when I get that sorted out.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[rachaelATWH4]

Hiya,

I've created a GIT repository for any of my EAGLE utilities that I decide I want to share. I've uploaded it to GitLab and made it public. Here is the link:

https://gitlab.com/rachaelp/eagle-utils

I decided to get this working sooner rather than later so if people get feedback to me I can raise tickets within GitLab so I can keep track of things and you can see progress towards fixing issues.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[rachaelATWH4]

Just a quick follow up. I've changed / extended the command line switches in the latest version in my git repository.

To install the context menu entries:

run nameNet --install

To report the version of the tool:

run nameNet --version

To report the location of the ULP (useful for debug):

run nameNet --locate-ulp

To rename a net from the EAGLE command line:

run nameNet oldName newName

As stated previously, it requires power pins on devices to be of type PWR, but this has it's own drawbacks and this may not be consistent across libraries. My next update will be to trace through all the pins connected to the nets which connect to the device in search of pins of type SUP which will denote power/ground rails as not rename these nets as well as the ones on PWR pins. I'll pop a message here when I have got it going and pushed a new version to the repository.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[rachaelATWH4]

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@rachaelATWH4 wrote:

Just a quick follow up. I've changed / extended the command line switches in the latest version in my git repository.

To install the context menu entries:

run nameNet --install

To report the version of the tool:

run nameNet --version

To report the location of the ULP (useful for debug):

run nameNet --locate-ulp

To rename a net from the EAGLE command line:

run nameNet oldName newName

As stated previously, it requires power pins on devices to be of type PWR, but this has it's own drawbacks and this may not be consistent across libraries. My next update will be to trace through all the pins connected to the nets which connect to the device in search of pins of type SUP which will denote power/ground rails as not rename these nets as well as the ones on PWR pins. I'll pop a message here when I have got it going and pushed a new version to the repository.

Best Regards,

Rachael

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A quick addition to the above. To completely remove an entire name from the schematic you can perform the following command:

run nameNet --delete [--force] name

NOTE: It will prompt you with a confirmation box unless the --force option is supplied in which case it will immediately delete the named net in its entirety from your design.

More updates to this and other ULP coming to my library soon!

Best Regards,

Rachael