Editing part attributes

[PW_VOX]

I'm possibly missing something obvious but how do I edit part attributes in the library editor?

The attributes show up in the inspector panel in both schematic and board views but if they show as defined in library when you hover over them they can't be changed.

[shawn3WMTV]

I also can not figure this out. 

I would like to added a Digikey part number attribute to my library parts so I do not have to add them at the schematic level. That is the only way I have figured out how to do it so far. This is so the BOM generation gives me an order list.

A device that has multiple packages needs to have attributes assigned at the package level. 

Is this possible?

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @shawn3WMTV 

I hope you're doing well. In the device editor, each package variant can have it's own attributes. On the right side click the package variant and then using the attributes command you can define the attributes for it. Attributes are just name-value pairs and you can make as many of them as you want.

In the library, attributes have to be defined at the Device level.

Let me know if you continue to run into issues.

Best Regards,

[wleismer]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but my question is related to this topic, and I figured it might make sense to tag along.  While in the Device Editor, is it possible to edit multiple package variant attributes at the same time? If I select all the package variants, then click attributes, and make changes, only the last package variant to be selected is actually changed.

[robert.martinUKYP4]

Seconded

[hans.kemperKENEK]

So yes I was able to define the values of a variant I did as follows:

In the library editor click on the device then on the right hand select the variant of which you want to define the value. Click on the attribute icon (right of the add part icon) . Then define a new attribute called VALUE and set the value you want to set (just below next to the value).  Save your library and it should work!!

Sorry: seemed to work however got a crash... I will try to find this out.... 

[hans.kemperKENEK]

Not sure why it crashed but seems to work again...

[mail4peter]

I find the content/component manger more over the way attributes are assigned and maintained very static.  It's fine if you have a small component library, but when it grows you will get in trouble.  Also adding variant creates a copy of all the attributes which multiplies the editing and maintenance effort > this is bad, because component attributes share 99% of the data between variants, so why create a full unrelated copy? 

[CGBenner]

@mail4peter 

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for your thoughts.

@HelenChen-ElectronicsQA Do you have any thoughts on this?

[mail4peter]

Thank you for your comment and getting R&D involved.

Let me give a concrete example that depicts the issue.

For IPC and depending on the board density you could end-up with 3 different
footprints for a single component.

Another example is patterns for reflow or wave soldering process.

In Fusion' component manger this means creating additional variants for the
same component making individual (initial empty) attribute copies that need
to be edited and maintained individually (relation is broken). This is bad
because the component itself did not change neither did the initial
attributes (they should remain 100% identical and linked across variants)

Next, I expected but did not find a good way to mass edit component
attributes across libraries or components, this makes the whole experience
very static and mouse-click-intensive and a major reason not to favour
Fusion for large and labour-intensive PCB projects.

Best regards

Peter

[jorge_garcia]

Hello @mail4peter,

Thank you for the feedback, I've added your comments to an existing ticket about attribute management. You can script attribute creation for all of the devices in library but that is not straightforward to do. 

Keep in mind that for attributes where you have ordering information, that would in fact be different for the different base footprints. If attributes like pricing information and inventory are also used then there would be more variability in attribute values than in the example presented.

With that said you should have to option to have them be the same in an easy way, without having to go into scripting.

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

Best Regards,

[mail4peter]

Hello Jorge,

Thank you for your feedback.

As a hardware engineer scripting to manage libraries should not be our first
focus, creating the schematic and PCB as effortless as possible is.

When it comes down to adding an entirely new component into the library, I
agree one needs to enter all attributes.

But when creating footprint or value (e.g. ohmic or capacitance) variants of
it, surely 90% of the parameters are the same, so why break them?

Anyway, I believe you get my point and I'm looking forward to a quick fix.