How to make template files

[vanepp]

@alhaddar

Is there a tutorial on how to make template files like some members do with these files?
breadboard
icon
pcb
schematic

Note that I know of (although the graphics standards set the visual format and spacing.) The best way is usually to start from a part that is similar (and which hopefully has correctly formatted files!) and modify that being careful to maintain the format (such as layerIds.) FritzingCheckPart.py will flag errors that will cause problems. This tutorial set may help as well

Part creation howto part 1 breadboard and pcb

Someone in this forum post requested help to fix up a part. So while doing that I decided to record what I needed to do in order to fix the part to provide a tutorial to create new / fix broken parts. If you start from the Tarjeta S4A EDU.fzpz file posted in the above thread, you should be able to recreate my improved part posted in the same thread. I started by loading the original part in to Fritzing, that indicates breadboard is (at first look anyway) pretty good, but schematic and pcb are…

@alhaddar

How are these files compiled into a file with the fzpz extension?

I don’t think this is documented anywhere. The files need to be in this format

part.fc-51_1.fzp
svg.breadboard.fc-51_85d98481ce3be6f2e9b641181c0f798b_1_breadboard.svg
svg.pcb.fc-51_85d98481ce3be6f2e9b641181c0f798b_1_pcb.svg
svg.schematic.fc-51_85d98481ce3be6f2e9b641181c0f798b_1_schematic.svg

This is the part template directory that I use to make parts. The files are incomplete (no connectors for instance and incomplete fields that need to be completed in other cases.) I have tools (not so far published) that create the correct number and format of connectors and I know what needs to be changed to make a complete part and keep FritzingCheckPart.py happy with the result (usually after an error or 3 though when I forget to do something or make a typo.) To create a .fzpz file you zip the 4 (sometimes 5 if you have a separate icon svg which is possible) into the .fzpz file. The alternate format is 4 directories (without the prepended part. or svg.layerId. parts of the above like this from core parts:

Fritzing\fritzing-parts\core

3_Axis_Accelerometer_Breakout___MMA8452Q.fzp
…

which contains the .fzp files then

Fritzing\fritzing-parts\svg\core\breadboard

which contains the breadboard svgs

such as

3_Axis_Accelerometer_Breakout___MMA8452Q_BB.svg
…

(note the lack of svg.breadboard. on the file name!)

Fritzing\fritzing-parts\svg\core\icon

which contains the icon svgs (a copy of the breadboard svg if there is no icon svg.) like this

3_Axis_Accelerometer_Breakout___MMA8452Q_Icon.svg
…

Fritzing\fritzing-parts\svg\core\pcb

which contains the pcb svgs like this

3_Axis_Accelerometer_Breakout___MMA8452Q_PCB.svg
…

and

Fritzing\fritzing-parts\svg\core\schematic

which contains the schematic svgs like this

3_Axis_Accelerometer_Breakout___MMA8452Q_Sch.svg
…

The svg file names are defined in the .fzp file (and must match in case to be valid on all operating systems!) FritzingCheckPart.py will accept and deal with either format.
Hope this helps!

Peter