Testing: Symbol Library Table Released

If you get warning about missing libraries when you start your current version of Eeschema, make sure to fix the missing libraries if they contained symbols that are in the schematic before you attempt to remap your schematic. Otherwise, the correct symbol will not be found and you will end up with broken symbol links in your schematic. You can test this by left clicking on a symbol in the schematic and verifying that the symbol is not being loaded from the cache library. If a symbol is being loaded from the cache library, you are already skating on thin ice.

If you have been using a development build of KiCad, copy the full default global symbol library table (sym-lib-table) file from the template folder installed with the KiCad libraries or from the KiCad library repo to your KiCad user configuration folder. This will replace the empty one (most likely) created by Eeschema. If you do not do this, you will most likely end up with a bunch of broken symbol links.

Make sure your default KiCad template project file (kicad.pro) has no entries in the [eeschema/libraries] section or get a copy from the KiCad source repo. If you build from source or are using a nightly build, the update project template file has already been installed. It is imperative that you do not have any symbol libraries in your project files. Otherwise, you could possible be effect by this bug which the symbol library table is designed to resolve.

During the remapping process, symbol libraries not found in the global symbol library table will be used to create a project specific symbol library table. You will have to move them manually to the global symbol library table if that is your preference.

For the most accurate remapping you should create a project library by copying the project cache file (project-name-cache.lib) to a different file and add it to the top of the symbol library list. You must use a version of KiCad prior to the symbol library table implementation in order to do this.

When removing the symbol from a library currently being edited in the library editor, the next symbol in the library is not automatically loaded so the canvas will be empty. You will have to select a new symbol to edit.

The cache library is not longer shown in either the symbol library viewer or the symbol library editor. The cache should have never be editable because any edits would get overwritten by the next schematic save. The cache being removed from the symbol library viewer is a minor issue. Given that the cache library is going away when the new schematic file format is completed it was decided that it adding a lot of extra code for something that will soon be obsolete didn’t make much sense.

Symbol naming now follows the same convention as footprint naming. The colon ':' and forward slash '/' characters are illegal and will cause issues with broken symbol links. Please fix any symbol names that contain these characters. It is also a good idea to not use any characters that are not valid file name characters on both Posix and Windows file systems. When the new symbol library file format is implemented, illegal file name characters will cause issues.