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Custom Device Symbols: Managing Width


spettitt

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Hello,

 

I'm starting on building our library of device symbols to store in our workgroup. I see lots of people customise the device label with additional fields, and we would certainly like to start by adding IP to it, but I'm not sure how to deal with varying device width.

 

I've customised the dev_label_generic in a file to look something we'd want to start with. I will likely build all of our custom symbols using the device builder and the nudge them in to shape. I can add a device using the builder, which comes in with a width of 32, and the new label fits nice:
image.png.fb02518d3c4fff2a93aa6ef615191f96.png

But if I bring in another device from the builder with longer port names, it might generate wider, and the dev_label_generic obviously doesn't resize to the same width. I don't mind editing it as it's being saved as a custom device symbol anyway, but then the dev_label would need to be named to that device, and I really don't want loads of them!

What do other people do here please? My current idea is to build a version of dev_label_generic for a bunch of standard widths - 32, 36, 40, 44, 48 and then have dev_label_32, dev_label_36 etc. Then when the device builder generates me something that is 37.8 wide, I edit the symbol, round the width up to 40, move everything to the grid and then choose the dev_label_40 label. Then save the symbol to the relevant library file. Or is there an even better way, please?

 

Also, it would be nice if the device builder rounded up the width of a generated device to something nominal, maybe 32, 34, 36, 38 etc, rather than:


image.thumb.png.426ee0f4254f4568793da15994e48d23.png

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2 hours ago, wscooper said:

@spettittfor my learning how are you storing your custom devices? In the device builder or as symbols?

As symbols. Because:

 

At the time we started with it, the workflow for distributing the text-based device definitions using a workgroup folder (rather than your user folder) didn't really seem a great option. It seems pretty easy to get things in to the device definitions in your user folder, but we don't really want everyone in the office maintaining their own databases, for reasons of standardisation and double-handling. We can put a CSV in our workgroup folder to make definitions available for everyone, but there will probably be 2-3 of us that make library devices, so we can't simply replace the CSV in the workgroup with the one from our user folder - we'd need to manually merge new content in to avoid losing things.

 

It also wouldn't be ideal the fact that non-stock devices (i.e. those from a user or workgroup folder) are nested within the same category/make structure as the stock ones. I do think this is probably the best behaviour for the general user base, but we have slightly different standards from the stock definitions, it wouldn't be ideal with them all smushed together. But for us it's a non-issue as we don't use Device Builder to maintain definitions.

 

But - there have been some changes in SP4, and some of the above could now be false. I haven't checked.

 

We obviously still use Device Builder to build new things - generally start with the closest thing from the stock library and then knock the ports, signal types etc in to shape. Once it's in the drawing, I round up/down to our nearest standard width, move mains sockets to the bottom corner, put the device label on, then Save As Symbol and make sure to overwrite the one that was generated when it first came out of Device Builder. Then move that to the Library file.

 

This workflow has been made better in SP4 by the fact that the Device tool in Symbol mode can now detect resources in the relevant location of the workgroup library, so the experience for the user using a library device is no different to using the Lighting Device tool or whatever.

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8 hours ago, spettitt said:

As symbols. Because:

 

At the time we started with it, the workflow for distributing the text-based device definitions using a workgroup folder (rather than your user folder) didn't really seem a great option. It seems pretty easy to get things in to the device definitions in your user folder, but we don't really want everyone in the office maintaining their own databases, for reasons of standardisation and double-handling. We can put a CSV in our workgroup folder to make definitions available for everyone, but there will probably be 2-3 of us that make library devices, so we can't simply replace the CSV in the workgroup with the one from our user folder - we'd need to manually merge new content in to avoid losing things.

 

It also wouldn't be ideal the fact that non-stock devices (i.e. those from a user or workgroup folder) are nested within the same category/make structure as the stock ones. I do think this is probably the best behaviour for the general user base, but we have slightly different standards from the stock definitions, it wouldn't be ideal with them all smushed together. But for us it's a non-issue as we don't use Device Builder to maintain definitions.

 

But - there have been some changes in SP4, and some of the above could now be false. I haven't checked.

 

We obviously still use Device Builder to build new things - generally start with the closest thing from the stock library and then knock the ports, signal types etc in to shape. Once it's in the drawing, I round up/down to our nearest standard width, move mains sockets to the bottom corner, put the device label on, then Save As Symbol and make sure to overwrite the one that was generated when it first came out of Device Builder. Then move that to the Library file.

 

This workflow has been made better in SP4 by the fact that the Device tool in Symbol mode can now detect resources in the relevant location of the workgroup library, so the experience for the user using a library device is no different to using the Lighting Device tool or whatever.

 

Thats helpful thank you! I know connectcad is built with flexibility but some workflow suggestions go a long way!

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