What's Good About PDV Symbol Property Templates? The Secret's in the SPB16.2 Release!

Allegro PCB Librarian / Part Developer (PDV) Symbol Property Templates have been a very beneficial feature in the SPB16.2 release.

IEEE standards define a certain set of properties and their attributes for a symbol. Adding these properties individually to each symbol and setting the attributes according to the defined standards is a time-consuming and error-prone task for librarians. The Part Developer SPB16.2 release provides easy-to-use functionality for creating symbol property templates and applying them not just at the setup level, but also at a symbol level. This support for symbol property templates makes symbol creation a quick and efficient process for librarians who need to create symbols according to specific standards.

Enhancements added to support Symbol Property Templates include:

•  Defining text height for properties
•  How the property will be displayed (i.e. visibility, color, rotation, location, and alignment)
•  Extracting a template from an existing symbol

Part Developer provides you the ability to define part construction rules and property settings through the use of templates. Using templates, you can quickly create parts that follow your company standards, yet have the flexibility to add properties and behaviors specific to the parts. You can also apply the templates to existing parts.

Typically, a symbol-level template needs to be modularized so that you can create reusable libraries for different symbol elements such as properties and graphics

Displaying Components of Symbol Property Templates

Symbol Property Templates contain a set of symbol level properties and their attributes which are added to a symbol when the template is applied. The application of a symbol property template on a symbol will enable users to quickly add these properties on the component that they are building. The template can be applied on the existing as well as new components.

Symbol Property Templates contain the following data:

•  Default property height (system units)
•  List of symbol level properties, where each property contains the following attributes
  • Name
  • Value
  • Visibility
    (Note: the typical options apply - Both, Invisible, Name, Value
•  Display attributes
  • Color
  • Rotation
  • Height
  • Location
  • Alignment

Symbol Property Templates basics

Selecting Templates> New, will present the symbol property creation dialogue box:

The template type will be saved in a file with an extension of .sptpl

In order to view, edit, or apply an existing template, select Templates> Open.

In order to extract a template from an existing symbol, Right-Mouse-Button (RMB) click on the symbol in the left side tree view and select Extract Property Template:

As always, I welcome your discussions on this new SPB16.2 PDV feature.

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia