Locking the breadboard and tcobbler parts in breadboard view can also help prevent accidental moves.
I was thinking about ways to solve this properly.
- being able to create a custom shape for the part would handle things well, but getting away from a rectangular bounding box seems like a BIG project
- something like the ability to split a single schematic part into multiple sub parts, each moveable, and with its own mounting box would work well
- without those, creating this as 2 separate parts might work. One for the breadboard connections, the other for the raspberry header. Each with additional (almost invisible) connectors to connect to each other (male on one part, female on the other). Each of the extra connectors on a bus with one (or more for things like ground) of the main connectors. Place the breadboard part on the breadboard, then place the raspberry pi header on the breadboard piece. Like Peter’s adjustment, this would not quite lineup with a physical part, since need to keep all of the visible and invisible connectors on the 0.1 inch grid. To have enough room while preventing the breadboard part bounding box from getting wider, and preventing the header part from overlapping (hiding) any breadboard connectors, the header would need to be further from the breadboard part (or extend further out the other side). Need room for 40 connectors in the overlap region (minus however many can be dropped because a single bus only needs one joining connector). That is in addition to the 0.05 offset Peter used to get the header on the same grid as the breadboard.
That last case is another example where it would be very useful to be able to specify (during part creation) a specific (reference) connector that is to be aligned to the active grid. With that, the spacing would not need any adjustment. The 40(ish) joining connectors could be placed with smaller separation, keeping the relative positioning of the 2 pieces of the part correct. The part has (easy) room for 4 columns of 10 connectors on 0.05 inch spacing in the empty region between the breadboard and header parts, without extending either bounding box. If Fritzing could be told to not use any connectors in that block when considering how to align the parts to the grid.
Those schematic style sub parts would also be very useful in breadboard view for things like a cable harness. Basically 2 headers with virtual (invisible and bussed) wires between them. That would allow the breadboard view to stay much neater for some projects. Electrically equivalent to using a bunch of net labels in schematic view, but showing (if the breadboard graphics are done right) that it is a bundle of connections that start at one place, and end at another.