Open FZ without Custom Parts in bin

What happens if someone opens a FZ circuit ,fzz with custom parts, that they don’t have in their bin?

They will be imported into the Temp bin…

Ah, is that what that thing is for. It always annoys me when that bin opens mysteriously.

You can also save parts from the Temp bin to My Parts bin.

My goodness this thing has a lot of features, someone should write a manual.

I don’t know who came up with Fritzing, but boy were they were thinking ahead.

Can you please tell me how to do that? We have a case were someone wants to replace a part in an existing sketch. I have figured out how to make the change with both parts in mine, but not with both in temp (it doesn’t work). If I can get both parts in to mine then the autoreplace may operate but I don’t see how to move a part from temp to mine to try it.

Peter

If you right-click on the temp part and save as new part without any changes it ends up in MINE bin.

OK I’ll try that and see if it works. Thanks!

Edit: that creates a new part that isn’t in the sketch (which is not useful for replacing the part in the sketch) so this may be a dead end as there doesn’t look to be a way to just move the part between bins.

Peter

Did you get this resolved?

Only in the negative sense that Old_Grey’s method works but doesn’t do what I need. The problem is some has updated a part and wants to update it in an existing sketch via replacing the svgs. If both parts are in the mine parts bin (which seems to be special) you can load the svg from the new part in the bin into the original part with parts editor and it will offer to update the sketch for you. In the case (which is normal with a pre existing sketch that has been saved) where the part (a custom part) is in temp, I can get the new part in to temp by loading it in to the sketch and saving the sketch (so the old and new part are in temp) and parts editor lets me change svgs but doesn’t offer to update the sketch (because save as opposed to save as new part is greyed out). Is there a trick to be able to get a part in temp back in to mine while maintaining the necessary links to do the replacement? Doing a save as a new part loses the necessary state when returning to mine (which I more or less expected).

Peter

I don’t quite understand what you mean… maybe if I looked at the files I would have a better understanding. Where can I download these files and I will rack my brain on it for a while…

My bad, not enough context. It is in these two threads:

The OP has made a new part which we helped him improve and now wants to substitute the new part for the old one without redoing the sketch. That seems to be possible if both parts are in the mine parts bin (the new parts editor will replace the svgs and update the sketch) but not if both parts are in the temp bin (parts editor won’t save the part from the temp bin except as a new part which doesn’t update the sketch). I also just discovered that the pin numbers on the latest part are all different which will break this entirely I think, but I’m still interested in learning how an updated part can be slid in to an existing sketch (as long as the pins have remained the same). On a different topic, I have a development environment for Fritzing sort of up (there are a number of problems) and have discovered where and even how to fix my favorite bug where a corrupted part file hangs fritzing, but the fix isn’t going to be that simple. There is no error checking on the return from the parts load which causes a seg fault when it tries to update the part (and thus the hang) and I have to figure out how to delete the files that it has already loaded which doesn’t look that easy but should be possible with enough work.

Peter

If I understand the problem, he wants to replace a part in a project that is in the temp bin with a replacement part that is in mine bin with different pin assignments and not lose the traces… or something like that.

You are right, the .fzp would need to be identical in both parts in order to route the traces as assigned in the .fz which in the .fzz. If the pin assignments in both .fzp files are the same and a little magic they can be swapped out… other wise you would need to use the Delete Minus.

There are a couple of ways to swamp out parts… but first you need to understand how it works. When a project is saved as an .fzz, a .fz file is created, this is your project and how it is wired up. If you have parts that are not core parts, the .fzp and the four .svg files for that part will be added to the .fzz. So if you had two non-core parts in you project you would have a total of eleven files in the .fzz. The .fzz is nothing but a .zip with an .fzz extension. When the project is opened up in Fz the non-core parts will be saved in the partfactory and appear in the temp bin whether you have the original part in your mine parts or not. If the original part is in mine parts it will use that one, if not it will use the one it the partfactory. The funny thing is, that they seem to be connected, although they are two identical parts with the same variant#, but they are not really connected. When the project is closed the temp parts in the partfactory will be deleted. When you re-save the project, it will create a path to the part in mine.

I found a little bug while looking into this project; If you click on the temp part and click add to bin, you can add it to My Part and it will create a link in your my_parts.fzb where the part is located “partfactory”. But when you close your project the part is deleted from partfactory. The next time you open Fz and click on My parts you will get a error stating the part does not exist. Then you have to manually delete the link from your my_parts.fzb.

To get around this problem you will need to export the part form the temp bin and import it back in the My parts and all the part files will be installed in your parts/user directory.

To swamp part out, the two parts ( the old one and new one) must have the same family name but with a different variant#. Even a temp part with the same family name will show up under the same family group. Just click on the new variant and the new part should snap right in place regardless of which bin it is in…

Remember, in Fz you generally need to close Fz and re-open it to clear out the buffers or update your changes…

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Yes, I had thought that the change was only the addition of busses which would (or should anyway) have worked, but when I looked closer the connectors had changed which seemed likely a deal killer.

Thanks for this (and the rest of the explaination) you are as always correct, more understanding is better.

There are a number of them around file operations where files don’t get deleted when they should (which looks like the case here, when temp was destroyed the link should have been too). When I manage to get the python parts checker finished I’m hoping to be able to solve some of them.

Peter

I don’t think the link should have been deleted… I believe when you add the temp part to bin it should have also copied a set of part files from the partfactory to the parts/user folders and created a permanent part in the My parts bin… Need to pass that on the the core people…

I get the impression we are the core people now. The development environment is somewhat broken, the head build gerber output doesn’t work because of a massive commit that has gone wrong and has been that way since around May with no indication (other than an urgent trouble ticket from el-j) that anything is happening on it. While I hope there is action that just isn’t obvious in a commit yet there isn’t much action.The head still has all the file bugs I know of and doesn’t seem to have many other changes at least not that have been commited.

Peter

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Now I find the “add to bin”

I had 2 variants of a part with that same family, and I remember just selecting it in the Inspector and it changed with traces intact.

In the meanwhile, we just have to use our workarounds (export then import) and whatever tricks we have up our sleeves. I don’t think there will be a lot of great improvements unless some corporation or foundation is willing to give a grant to the Fritzing project. All the core people have jobs and families making it difficult to put free time into Fritzing. We are all retired and have more time to give… and make ourselves feel useful helping others… I think Fritzing just got stuck on the back burners for awhile until someone comes along and takes the reins, willing and able to put a bunch of free time in…

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