> Scenario:
<snip>
> Another issue involved with this, and assuming I can do this, how do I get
> all of the footprints/symbols used in a PCB or Schematic to point back to
> the local library made using "Make Library" under the design tab, rather
to
> other libraries located elsewhere which may have been used originally.
<snip>
>
> JaMi

JaMi,

FYI (For Your Information), I would be very very wary about using the "Make
Library" command. As is regrettably typical for Altium's software, that
command is buggy in that some of the properties for various types of
primitive objects (such as a user-specified value for a pad's or via's
Solder Mask Expansion, as just one example) are not properly "copied" (from
the "source" component within the PCB document file to the "target"
footprint within the PCB Library file).

And I have personally had a gutsful of encountering components whose
associated footprints had been created by the use of that command - which
can be deduced from the "offset" of such components' insertion points from
where they could reasonably have been expected to have been located.

I have been working on an addon server for Protel 99 SE which will create a
"decent" PCB library file from a PCB document file, with the intention of
making this available for all interested users. As of yet I haven't figured
out how to change the name of the PCB library file which is created by that
server (or how to change the name of that file and then add primitives to it
afterwards), but if the worst comes to the worst and I can't figure out how
to do that, users would arguably still be a lot better off, as it is not
unduly difficult to "manually" rename that file - and certainly a lot less
bother than having to check and rectify the insertion point of each
footprint within the PCB library file, and the properties of each primitive
within each footprint within that file.

Time permitting, I ultimately hope to provide another two processes within
the same server to "export" a PCB library file to an ASCII format file and
to "import" such a file back into a PCB library file again. (Users can save
schematic document files, schematic library files, and PCB document files in
either a binary format or an ASCII format - but PCB library files can only
be saved in a binary format, so this addon server would similarly provide,
to the maximum possible extent, an ASCII format for PCB library files as
well.)

I don't think for one minute that Altium's software is totally "bad" - but
what is indisputable is that the software which has been provided to users
has not been tested anywhere near as well as it should have been, and that
it is all too common for truly serious bugs to not be rectified forthwith
(quite apart from, and "over and above", the fact that such bugs shouldn't
have been present within any publicly released software in the first
instance).

Regards,
Geoff Harland.




 
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