A PIA I’ll agree with but I expect it is somewhat that Inkscape is aimed at professional graphic artists and this application is too simple for them. A lot of my problems are with stuff I have no use for, it seem to be fairly well documented and of course it is free which is attractive. In any case I have a new version for consideration, as well (naturally) as a problem. I with much difficulty added some text to the silkscreen layer which shows up fine in Inkscape, but doesn’t make it into Fritzing. Any one have any idea why? As well comments on what can be or should be improved appreciated. PM6078-004_v4.fzpz (8.3 KB)
In PCB the outer rectangle can be coloured by
In Ink XML editor click on silkscreen so that it selects the outer rect in the drawing, hold shift and click on the black square on the bottom left colour bar.
There is some error in the copper layers.
I think you have text in copper, it should be in silk,
Copper is for contacts and holes, Silk is all lines and text.
I removed all the text and unindented the silk and copper to one level behind the top node and deleted all the rest, and no error.
Thanks for both. I’ve been changing the background color in file-document properties->background color from 255 255 255 (white like the silkscreen) to 90 90 90 (light brown) and didn’t notice the text that shows up isn’t on the correct layer. I’ll see if I can get it to the right layer (since it seems to be almost there …).
A late question: how do you determine there is an error in the copper? I don’t see anything unusual in the debug console output (the complaints are all about connectors and always seem to occur even though the connectors all seem to work in the end) am I missing some other source of error indications?
White silk is how they used to do it, or it was converted from an Eagle.
When I go to edit your part FZ says it can’t do separate copper layers, but when I looked at the XML it looked fine except for the text. I cleaned it up and no error now.
Unzip this one and open the pcb and look at the Ink’s XML edit tree and open up silk and copper groups, then compare it to your svg EDIT/XML Editor tree.
Ink has a bug sometimes when I indent nodes in XML edit tree where sizes change, so I didn’t check those as this was just and experiment. If you want to check them you might be able to use the svg.
Hmm, things are getting odd! I don’t see any errors when loading or editing my original part, it just doesn’t display the text (which I’ll work on). I thought maybe I had to import the exported part (which I hadn’t done, my bad!) to get the error message but for me, when I deleted the part and imported it again it is just as happy as with the original, no error messages either on load to Fritzing or when I started the parts editor from the mine parts bin although the xml is obviously wrong (even I can see that once it was pointed out ) Ah! late inspiration, deciding to be complete I re imported the part then moved it to the breadboard before starting parts editor. Now I get the error message from parts editor which I didn’t (and still don’t) when I edited from the mine parts bin. Any way, thanks, knowing what the problem is points me in the direction of a fix (either give up on silk screen text, which I don’t want to, or figure out how to do it correctly!) and I learned to put the new part in a sketch to be sure it really works!
After I imported I right-click Edit on the imported part in MINE bin and it gives the “can’t handle separate layers” error. Maybe it’s because I’m using the newer v0.9.3 - It is a slightly bigger download and it seams to have a few more bugs than the first -.
Hmm, I look to be on the latest version (I only downloaded my original at the end of August and I think the new version was earlier than that) plus I just did another download and the files compare identical. As to the text I’m hijacking the Arduino pro mini which has 24 .600 pins and text on the pcb silk screen and I’ll see if Inkscape will leave it alone enough to keep Fritzing happy . I’ve concluded that I don’t know enough to substitute the text xml from an unrelated footprint (which is how I did the V4 version). At least I’m slowly learning how to do things even if in an inefficient manner.
Aug should be the Fritz 0.9.3 ---- 186.786KB file version like mine.
I pretty much do all my parts that way now. I find a part with a view I like, save it as new, export, unzip, take the svg I want and mod it, and load just that svg into my new saved part that is derived from something similar. I mix and match svg from multiple parts all over the place. You can tell old svgs from new with white silks, or the coppers are separate instead on one inside the other.
OK. I’m back from beating my head (successfully this time against motor shaft encoders to beating my head against Inkscape where Inkscape is still winning. My current problem (and perhaps my entire problem) is that I don’t know and can’t figure out from their documentation how to group things or more correctly having created something how to move it in to the correct group. For example I took the arduino pro mini v13 part from core and swiped the pcb layout because it has text on the silkscreen. That seems to work ok, I get the text on the silkscreen by duplicating whats there and moving it around. That particular footprint however lacks the square box around pin 1. Easy enough (supposedly anyway), just use the rectangle tool to create one. Figured that out. However nothing that I have done so far will make it work correctly as I can not get it to go in to the copper0 layer. If in xml editor I select it and drag it in to the copper0 layer it appears to go and the xml looks fine. But save the file and restart Inkscape and the rectangle is back in root not in copper0 where I dragged it. Fine so supposedly selecting the element in xml editor and hitting the <, >, ^, and down arrow (which I don’t have or don’t recognize) will supposedly move it in some vaguely specified manner between what I think are groups (although the documentation is vague on that). However selecting the rectangle in xml editor and pressing "< " or “>” moves the highlight to the top entry (what I think is the root level) and does nothing about moving the selected item between groups. Can someone please explain how to move the rectangle in to the copper0 layer?
Trying their suggested method of cutting the rectangle to the clip board and then pasting it in place after selecting the group moves it in to copper1, but won’t (at least in any way I’ve found so far) move it in to copper0 where it needs to be. I’ll probably try manually editing the xml with a text editor next to see if that may work.
Open XML Editor in Ink.
Click on the node in the tree that puts a highlight box around the object.
Go to the top of the XML Editor and run the pointer over the faded boxes - they don’t look active but they are - and Indent. Unindent, up arrow or down arrow until it’s in the Copper group you want.
If you unindent or indent and the part disappears zoom out until you see it and drag it back in position, or reverse one step and note the node position in the main screen on the top bar - must be in arrow select - and just type in the coordinates again.
Are you sure you want that rectangle in copper because that will become a copper pad or a hole if it has a hole.
So simple yet so unclear in their documentation! Thank you that indeed appears to work! I had tried every one of the tool bar menus and never even noticed the one at the top of xml editor window. Yes the pad wants to be on the copper, it is the standard marker for pin 1 on a chip on the board and the generic IC has it, but for some reason the Arduino folks didn’t do it. Now to see if I can sort out text. At the moment (after working once) if I simply delete some text Inkscape totally rewrites the xml in to a form that Fritzing utterly rejects (the pcb turns in to on large black box with no pads!). So its back to figuring out what I did (and apparently in what order I did it) the first time. My hair will be grey by the end of thisi (but I may yet get a working part …)!
Those faded buttons fool everyone, even me. I should send a bug report to Inkscape, as I already have one there now.
Maybe try a minimal disturb method
IN XML Editor if you click on a text node of a text that works.
Press the duplicate button
Open it’s tree to the last line that shows the actual text and click on it.
Type the new text in the right pane, it’s instantaneous
Go back up to the primary text node in the tree and click on font size.
In bottom right pane change it and press set.
EDIT
Well that’s annoying.
It worked for one part, but text doesn’t work in this new part.
I get the error when loading the svg in FZ saying that the fonts will be converted, and when it does it turns tiny.
From memory the other part didn’t have the conversion error, and was fine.
EDIT EDIT
So I copy my text from the DENSO
Rotate -90º
Go in to XML Editor and change the label to MPX
Save and load.
Now the text doesn’t error or shrink, but somehow the full part name is substituted instead of the MPX text
The font size change is caused by Inkscape putting px after the font size number such as 80px if your remove the px leaving only the number the problem goes away. I have to do that in an external text editor which is a pain and a pain to remember to do but it does work. It is also a hidden time bomb, in that many times the first part edit works fine lulling you into thinking its fine, and it changes the font size to 0 on the second edit … Changing the order of my text changes to the start and then making copper layer changes after seems to work for me so text is just somewhat sensitive with Inkscape not entirely impossible as I was beginning to think . Indeed being able to move the rectangle on the copper in to copper0 also works fine so thank you again.
Are you actually hacking the XML .fpz file to remove the px.
Moving stuff around with XML Editor in Ink is easy but sometime it goes totally berserk, so I’m trying stuff to figure out if it’s FZ or Ink. Ink svgs do it if you UnIndent too much, but FZ svgs can go crazy just on a raise node.
EDIT
Where did everyone get their fonts from.
In Ink the OCR A extended is not the same as a googled OCRA font, which explains why I keep getting that font error, and Droid is something I don’t see in ink.
Also in Ink you can’t change the font with the top bar, explains why it keeps reseting back to OCR A Extended, you have to open the text and font box and do it there.
Inkscape will reinsert that px every time it loads and saves the svg and after a parts edit or 2 Fritzing will set the fonts to 0 size. The fonts I’m using are from the Fritzing graphics temple at
Ahh the style line, I’ve been looking in the font size line.
I think I installed fonts from some other download - didn’t know enought to notice they didn’t show up - now I have the official fonts and they come up in Ink.
EDIT
Just noticed that there is EDIT/Preferences in Ink, maybe select a different font unit.
OK, finally my next attempt. At this point the only issue I’m aware of is that sometimes when I load the part the schematic view is rotated 90 degrees. Exit and load again and it may come out correct with no changes to the part. I don’t know if that is caused by an error somewhere or not. In any case I’ve cleaned up the meta data and I think this should be at least close to correct if folks would have a look and point out issues. VALOR _PM6078-04_DC-DC_Converter_v1.fzpz (8.7 KB)
Dido! I can’t find anything wrong with it either. For the schematic view or any view, the part to come up rotated or way off center of page is a Fritzing thing. Don’t know why it does it… it just does.
but I expect it is somewhat that Inkscape is aimed at professional graphic artists and this application is too simple for them. A lot of my problems are with stuff I have no use for, it seem to be fairly well documented and of course it is free which is attractive. In any case I have a new version for consideration, as well (naturally) as a problem. I with much difficulty added some text to the silkscreen layer which shows up fine in Inkscape, but doesn’t make it into Fritzing. Any one have any idea why? As well comments on what can be or should be improved appreciated. PM6078-004_v4.fzpz (8.3 KB)
) Ah! late inspiration, deciding to be complete I re imported the part then moved it to the breadboard before starting parts editor. Now I get the error message from parts editor which I didn’t (and still don’t) when I edited from the mine parts bin. Any way, thanks, knowing what the problem is points me in the direction of a fix (either give up on silk screen text, which I don’t want to, or figure out how to do it correctly!) and I learned to put the new part in a sketch to be sure it really works!