[solved] Making parts with "advanced settings"

parts help
1

i noticed there’s a few parts, e.g. “hole” (pcb), that have an “advanced settings” section in the inspector where you can enter arbitrary values that affect the part.

can i provide advanced settings for my own custom parts?

for example, there is a huge range of terminal blocks, headers, and board-to-wire connectors that can be completely parameterized as:

  • silkscreen rectangle width / height
  • offset position of first pin in silkscreen rectangle
  • number of pins
  • mounting pitch
  • pcb hole size
  • pcb ring size

(even more if row count + column count is included).

it gets pretty tedious having to define completely new parts when the pin layout isn’t available in some other part.

but this would also be useful for other parts besides connectors.

can i do this? like, i don’t know, have variables in the svg that are bound to fields in the inspector or something?

2

Not variables in the svg, but tags in the fzp file (which can read and select on values from the svg but not write them.) They usually select a different part that has the changes in the svgs, there isn’t currently a way I know of to modify svgs. The properties section of the fzp file is what does this usually but some of the stuff (especially those that make changes) are hard coded and usually create the image on the fly from parameters. Most of the ones in your list are likely hard coded though.

Peter

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