Edit Symbol Fields - Multiple Issues

[Art]

Tried to use symbol table for the first time to assign values to the components in the schematic. Figured I would share my unbiased observation.

Ok the problems:

1. Clicking on a cell highlights the whole row. Ok, not sure what is the point of it, but I guess somebody thought it might be useful. Double click the cell I want to edit - nothing happens. Weird. After literally a minute of clicking on cells, I finally figured out that you need to click ones to highlight a row, and then click ones again on a cell in the raw to enable editing. 0_0 There is The International Obfuscated C Code Contest, there should be a category there for a GUI design, this interface would definitely score there!

2. Now that I enabled editing of the cell, enter data and click on the row below to enter the data. The data is entered in the cell below the cell I was editing. O_O

3 There are two description columns in my table. I had to add a custom Description field, because I needed to have part description accessible when I edit symbol in the schematic. So one of those description fields can't be edited at all (which partially contributed to the extended time of trying to figure out how to edit cells in the problem #1)

4. It takes a while to arrange all the columns for more or less civilized editing (adjusting width of columns, disabling the one's that don't need to be showing etc.) Then if you exit the table and then enter again, all that editing is lost and you have to start from scratch.

I personally would expect for the table to mimic Excel behavior for editing and saving data. But maybe it is just me?

[Art (diametrix)]

Oh, forgot to mention - it would be extremely useful to be able to cut a paste a whole cell. For example, you click on the excel data cell copy it, then click on the EEschema symbol table cell and paste it.

Application: kicad
Version: (2018-01-26 revision 0d532b43d)-makepkg, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.3
    libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.11 libssh2/1.8.0 nghttp2/1.23.1 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.3 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.60.0
    Curl: 7.54.1
    Compiler: GCC 7.1.0 with C++ ABI 1011

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Art (diametrix)]

5. When you enter new data in the cell and it doesn't fit in the column width, the column width is adjusted, thus messing up all the previous adjustments you made, in your attempt to fit the table on a single monitor. Now you have to go and readjust everything again

Sorry this is kind of turning into stream of consciousness

[Art (diametrix)]

6. When I reorder components based on reference, and say I have the following components: C1, C4, C8, C16, C26 (all on separate lines) - I would expect them to be arranged in ascending or descending order. Instead they would be arranged like this: C1, C16, C26, C4, C8

[Art (diametrix)]

7. Undo doesn't seem to work on any of the edits.

[Art (diametrix)]

8. Regroup symbols button doesn't seem to be working for its intended purpose, or maybe I completely misinterpret its intended purpose. In my understanding if you change one or more symbols to match some other symbol (based on the Value filed?) then when you hit that button those two symbols now become grouped. I was unable to make it do that even though I copied and pasted every field from one symbol into another.

[Art (diametrix)]

9. Not all symbols get grouped properly - for example I had several identical capacitor symbols (replicated by copying). One of them with reference field "C17" would not get grouped for nothing. It might be related to the reference field itself, because in my BOM it comes up as "C 17" (with a space in between, albeit grouped properly, although the reference field in EEschema doesn't have a space). The same goes for another cap that has reference assigned to CTTC1, it would not group with the rest of the caps with reference assigned in a traditional C1, C2 etc. way.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Great stuff, Art. This will come in handy when I overhaul this dialog. Sadly a lot of the issues are due to it using wxDataViewCtrl (which as you've seen, has issues with in-place editing).

wxGrid (as used in Manage Symbol Library Tables) is much better, but that's too big of a change to squeeze into 5.0.

(If you happen to use the nightlies, though, it's high on my list for 6.0. I've already done the Symbol Editor Pin Table dialog.)

[Oivind Toien (otoien)]

This report describes some of the same issues as I reported in Bug #1737361, in particular issue #2 and #3 above. I agree with all the issues listed above.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

Moved table to wxGrid control. Fixes 1 and 2.

Removed alias description to fix 3. (It also caused confusion in the other bug report.)

Removed auto-column-width to fix 5.

Fixed sort algorithm for 6.

Re-implemented undo for 7.

Changed the UI a bit to make grouping clearer. That and code changes should fix 8.

For 9, I'm not sure about the space issue, but I don't think we want to group CTTC1 with C1 (since they don't in fact have the same reference prefix).

Fixing 4 is going to be a bit of work.

(NB the milestone. These won't be going into 5.0.)

[Art (diametrix)]

@Jeff

>For 9, I'm not sure about the space issue, but I don't think we want to group CTTC1 with C1 (since they don't in fact have the same reference prefix).

I thought we were grouping identical parts, not parts with prefixes following certain convention.

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@Art,

The second column of the list of fields is now called "Group By". (Sorting is controlled in the normal way by clicking on the column header.)

If you Group By reference, then we'll group by prefix following the Kicad convention.

If you have some other field that identifies identical parts, then you can group on that. In your case it might be Value + Footprint?

Does that work for you?

[Art (diametrix)]

As long as it would work with custom data fields it should be fine. Value field may work 80% of the time, but true part identification would be manufacturer part number, which I enter as a custom data field for every part.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision 000457db7cbf59d4d8052d936465ad473e4af2fa
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=000457db7cbf59d4d8052d936465ad473e4af2fa

[Daniel (kaas-is-baas)]

Fixing #4 would be great, but in the mean time, something that has driven me insane is my habit from Excel to press escape on my keyboard when I want to cancel editing a cell and revert to what it was before I started editing it.

In this instance if I press escape while editing a cell the entire window closes. Couple this with #4 and it drives you to insanity if you have multiple custom columns and widths to readjust each time. Ideally, the window should only close if no field is being edited or selected.

As Art previously mentioned, it would be most helpful if one can copy the contents of a cell by simply highlighting with a single click rather than having to double click and edit it.

Thanks for the effort!

Application: kicad
Version: (5.0.0-rc2-35-gda6600525), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.3
    libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.11 libssh2/1.8.0 nghttp2/1.23.1 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.3 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.60.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.8.0
    Curl: 7.54.1
    Compiler: GCC 7.1.0 with C++ ABI 1011

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    USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
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    KICAD_SPICE=ON