Bob, The message about the "unknown pin" has been around for ages (I thought it existed in P99SE as well). I think it is a quirk that should be fixed, but it is actually correct at least literally. Since when you validated the macros R2 did not exist on the PCB, its pins are indeed "unknown" - hence the warning and hence the reason why it works when you actually run the macros - the order of the macro execution has been thought about to ensure addition of components occurs before net allocation to their pads. My view is that the message should be modified and the system made a little smarter to be able to look back through the add macros to check whether the net allocations may be destined to a component about to be added - so the warning could be made into "component being added, pads can't be checked now" or something else suitable.
As Jason pointed out the messages persisting after the seemingly successful execute is more like a bug to me. The message is presumably old and has not been cleared since the previous validate. Annoying more that a big problem but would be a good little one to have fixed. You could forward you pictures to either the Altium form or their tech support and they could then investigate and maybe fix in one of their regular updates. If this was all posted on the Altium forum then at least there is a good chance that the developers would chime in and may enter an issue in their database - not sure if they will from here though. But I assume the paranoid-few will get upset at this statement. The annotation stuff must be annoying. You can prevent components being annotated - there is now a check box in their properties to do this. (See http://www.altium.com/forms/kb/kb_item.asp?ID=3730). Very useful for multi-part components - to allow you to control the part allocation. This issue looks odd to me. I think it would be worth asking the question of the Altium support people (via their forum or direct) and supply a project that shows the problem. If you have the annotation system set up to only annotate the ? designators then the re-annotation you see should not happen. There was extensive discussion on annotation in the Altium forums some time ago - searching the archives there may offer something. Ian On 02:11 AM 18/01/2006, Bob Wirka said: >I've now spent a week with AD6 and, in general, am pleased with the >product. Have some questions, however, and would appreciate any help offered. > >I've imported a design that was started in 99SE; it's a 6 layer board with >some .8mm bga components. Also have imported my 99SE libraries and added >them to the project (not as compiled libs). > >My first questions regard annotation and pcb board updating. I've attached >some PNG files to illustrate what's happening. > >A single resistor has been added to the top level schematic. It's >designator is R?, and I want to annotate it and bring it to the pcb. I'm >unable to just annotate this part; AD6 wants to re-annotate all the >multiple part designators, and I can't seem to stop it. I've tried the >"Quiet Annotation", checking and un-checking boxes in the annotation >dialog box, but no matter what I do it seems to want to mess with multiple >part items. See "UnwantedAnnotation.png"; I've boxed the modifications I >don't want it to make. > >The second question regards updating the pcb; AD6 tells me that it cant' >find pins for the resistor, yet it can successfully update the pcb. >Referring to "UnknownPins.png", you see that when the Validate Changes >button is pushed, it tells me that the pins on the resistor are unknown. >However, when the Execute Changes button is pushed, all is well; see >"UnknownPinsOk.png". This will probably be a problem when there are really >missing library components. How will you tell the difference between real >and imaginary errors? > >Where am I going wrong? > >Thank you, > >Bob Wirka >Realtime Control Works ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
