Making Changes to Pin Header Icon

I have been successful modifying a 2-row, 10-pin, shrouded male pin header connector from the Connectors location in the Core Parts Bin. My modified pin header connector is a 10-pin, single row, male-male pin header.

I was able to tell Fritzing that I wanted to make this 10-pin connector into a 9-pin connector. The drawing shows the last, or 10th connector pin displayed a different color from the nine pins above above the 10th pin.

Is there some way I can modify this 9 pin connector icon to show only 9 pins?

The uploaded image does not show the problem, and not really enough information to say how you modified the part, or where the problem is. But I can make a couple of guesses.

A fritzing part consists of multiple files packaged together. A part definition file and (up to) 4 svg image files for the different views. Those need to stay synchronized to get the correct results. From that short description, I think you have changed the definition file to remove the extra connector, but have not removed the connector from the image files. The different color is because Fritzing adjusts the look of graphics for the connectors it knows about (from the definition file). Other graphics is left the way it has been defined in the image files.

So, I think you need to edit the individual svg files (one per view), locate and remove the graphics for that last (10th) connector. Not (really) needed for the icon view, if there is a separate image for that. Often, the breadboard image is reused for the icon.

In FZ Edit select the ICON tab, then go FILE/Use BB view as Icon.

Thank you for your answer! My apologies for not providing a correct PDF image in my plea for help. How can I attach a PDF drawing for this connector problem for you to open and look at??.

For reference, I am a retired microwave/RF engineer with 42 years of experience. I am fairly talented with PSpice, but have done no PCB designs using any board layout package until now. Hence the babe in the woods image to the Fritzing experts.

To go from the 2 row, shrouded connector, I:

1. Went to the Bin, Core Parts Window

2. Scrolled down to the Connector Section

3. Pulled the 2 row 10 pin male shrouded connector icon onto the Breadboard window

4.  Edit(new parts editor) tab

5. In this editor, I selected the Metadata Tab, I:

6.  Changed the title to, Single Row Male Header 9-Pins

7. Changed the Description to, Single Row Male Header

8. In properties, I:

9. Changed Row to Single

10. Changed Pins to 9

11. Changed a label to 9-Pin Male Header

12. Changed a value to JR-1

13. Saved this information as a New Part.


However, 10 pins still show on the connector icon.

How can I change the icon to only display 9 pins?

By icon do you mean the actual icon, ie, the one in your MINE bin, or do you mean the part on the BB.

The part on the BB is changed by the Inspector settings - the box on the right under BIN, and this should be done before the part EDIT. The problem is that the shrouded header can’t do single or 9 pins, so you have to use plain header.

@Old_Grey he is creating a new (custom) part using parts editor, based on the existing 10 pin core header. Inspector part settings are not mixed into this yet.

@GRenken to just compare with the existing part, an svg, or jpeg image can be uploaded here. When editing a post or comment, the 7th icon from the left is upload. Either that, or drag and drop will get the image into the post. Which I assume is what you did last time. PDF files are not on the allowed list. If that is where you are starting from, a screen shot of the pdf in whatever you use to view the pdf locally works. The screenshot is normally saved as either jpg or png, either or which work here. If the pdf is publicly available on the web, you can just post the link to it here (4th button).

“icon” (for frizting parts) is the image that is shown in the parts bin, in the parts window. For this case, the “Mine” parts bin. You probably meant the header part image in the breadboard (and other) views.

To get that graphics correct, the view specific images need to be updated. I do not know of a way to get the parts editor to modify the graphics directly. In the parts editor, file menu, there is an option to “load image for view”, but the image to be loaded needs to be created / modified outside of Fritzing.

After saving the new part, it will show up in the “Mine” parts bin. Right click it there, and choose “Export part”. That will save the part as a “.fzpz” file, which is really a zip file. Extracting the content from that will get the files I mentioned in my previous content. The fzpz file is the way to share custom parts with others. One way to do that is the “parts submit” category on the forum. Opening a fzpz file loads the part into the “Mine” parts bin.

Use whatever svg editing tool you have available (Inkscape, Illustrator, Corel, or even a text editor (svg is just xml text)) to delete the graphics for the pin you want removed. Which better be the same one you removed from the definition in the parts editor. The svg graphics includes an id that has to match what is set in the definitions. Do that for each view specific svg image.

With the updated images, you can then use the “load image” option in the parts editor for each view, and save the part again.

I seldom (almost never, except to describe to someone else) use the parts editor. Since the fzpz file is a zip archive, you could just update the modified files directly with zip (or other archiving tool), instead of going back the parts editor, then delete the previous part from the “Mine” bin, and open the updated fzpz file in Fritzing. The part includes an internal ID that has to be unique, which is why I said to delete the old part first. The new one will not load, if it has the same ID as one that already in Fritzing. Parts Editor automatically created a new ID, and handles updating an existing part. Doing any manual adjustments outside of Fritzing means you need to do a couple of extra steps.

There are tutorials around (a whole category in the forum), including sections for creating and editing parts, as well as some on using different image editing software for best results in Fritzing. Depending on the configuration settings, svg editors can create content that Fritzing does not handle well. It uses “TinySVG” which is a subset.

If you run into issues, fzpz files are one of the types the forum allows to be uploaded. Which makes it a lot easier to see the source of the actual problem you are having. Whether that is from not understanding how Fritzing handles part information, or something that an image editing program messed up.

micromerlin: Thank you for your rather detailed set of “ins and outs” related to solving this problem. It will give me a lot to study combined with the Fritzing tutorials. I have been using Fritzing for about a month and have begun to feel less that simply dangerous.

Thank you for the first sentence in your answer explaining Old Grey’s advice, I sort of understood what he was suggesting.