I am using Fritzing in Linux - Ubuntu 22. My installation uses appImage.
I do not need many of the bins - there are many that I will simply never use.
If I right click on a bin, the option to ‘delete bin’ is greyed out. (In fact ‘close bin’ ‘save bin’ and ‘rename bin’ are also greyed out.
Why is this and how do I fix it?
FYI I have tried it on a number of bins - same issue…
Thanks
Since no one with more knowledge is replying, I’ll have a bash (although I am not an expert on bins.) I suspect the core bins are locked out from modification likely because they are compiled in to the code. If that is the case (which I’m not sure of) it will take a code change to remove the bins. Hopefully someone has a better answer (or can confirm this one if it is correct!)
Peter
Thanks for this Peter
I was starting to suspect that these bins are ‘baked in’.
It is a shame that there are some critical issues, the answer to which seem so hidden or at least hard to find.
I did some digging on this issue. On my AppImage Fritzing, I can find the Fritzing.conf file.
It is in ~/.config/Fritzing.
In there is the Fritzing.conf file. The bins are referenced in a series of numbered lines.
So I deleted references to a particular bin in the config file. When I restart Fritzing, the bin remains and it has been added BACK to the config file.
I tried again, making the config read-only.
The bin STILL reappears!
I am assuming that the cionfig simpy allows a fast loading of bins, but that Fritzing anyway does a ‘bin scan’ somewhere.
I suspect that the ‘somewhere’ is in the appimage…
Honestly, what I am trying to do is not unreasonable. The standard Fritzing install comes with a bunch of bins that I will NEVER use - the program even gives a function to delete them. But it is greyed out…
I do appreciate the work that is going into the writing of this code, but honestly I am aready checking out KiCad tutorials because it seems that there are other Fritzing issues, the solving of which will necessitate many google-rabbit holes i.e. waster time… life is short!
Thanks
Find the folder where the bins are stored (in my computer “C:\Program Files\Fritzing\fritzing-parts\bins\more”) and delete the ones that you do not want. This works in my computer, Fritzing 1.0.1 on Windows.
Hello !
Like NickNack, I’m using Fritzing 1.x on Ubuntu 22.04 in AppImage format.
I don’t worries about “bins” in my folder because there is few files (/home/my-name/Documents/Fritzing).
May be the ‘baked in’ process is to have cacheable bins part to speed up the search action ?
I understood it’s useful to have many bins, to start any project for students…
Mick
Fritzing simply doesn’t have write access to these most of the time, for example when they are in the AppImage. I recommend to not delete any files from the installation. If you already did, I’d recommend to download a fresh copy.
Thanks to all who have contributed.
Under what circumstances would Fritzing have write access?
If it is not possible to rename/delete bins, then what is the point of putting those options in Fritzing in the first place?
I can only assume that the delete/rename functions are not accessible in appImage builds, but might be accessible in a ‘standard installation’…
?
HI
In fact it is getting more complicated.
Every time I run Fritzing (which in my case is an appImage version on Ubuntu 22), Fritzing adds another “contrib” bin to my list in the parts. I now have over 50 ‘contrib’ bins!
So clearly Fritzing itself is storing either the bins, or references to the bins somewhere - but I cannot find where…
It is not saving the actual appImage file is it???
One thing to try if you haven’t already (and it may not help!) is to delete the user directories using these instructions:
There are two user directories (with your parts and the parts database) which don’t get touched during an install (to not affect your sketches during upgrades). On Windows they are in
c:\users\username\AppData\Fritzing\roaming\Fritzing (which is a hidden directory so you need to enable hidden directories in explorer) and
c:\Users\username\My Documents\Fritzing (where username is your windows id)
If you don’t have any parts or sketches you want to keep you can just delete those two directories and Fritzing will recreate them, or you can move them aside by renaming them if you want to keep something in them.
linux
~/Documents/Fritzing/parts
~/.config/Fritzing
Mac
/Users/username/Documents/Fritzing/parts
~/.config/Fritzing
When deleted Fritzing will recreate them where it wants them. This may not help because if it is a permissions problem it will keep generating new bins I expect, but it should tell you where Fritzing is finding the bins which may help.
Peter
Thank you Peter, very helpful.
In ~/.config/Fritzing is ‘fritzing.conf’.
In that file one can see dozens of duplicate entries for ‘config’. Each time I open and close Fritzing, it adds an additional entry. I don’t think it is actually adding bins as such, merely references to the bins.
At least now I can simply delete these additional entries to make the list manageable.
But why is it behaving in this way?
My guess will be permissions somewhere are preventing it from writing a bin it wants and it duplicates it but I’m not really sure as I haven’t seen this before.
edit:
Something else that might help is to run Fritzing in debug mode
from:
d,debug : runs Fritzing in debug mode, providing additional debug information
so
fritzing -d file_name may provide more information (I have never used this so I don’t know what it will do!) That may tell you what is causing the extra folders to be produced.
Peter