Unplaced/Placed symbol;s in PCB EDITOR

You are looking at the canvas, "placed parts" would be on the canvas, "waiting to be placed parts£ are on the Place>Manually list - strictly speaking, in the Components by Refdes selection. You can get a report of parts in the database from Tools>Quick Reports>Component Report, this won't distinguish between "placed" and "unplaced" parts though - you can get that from Tools>Quick Reports>Unplaced Components Report. Display>Status and click the button to the left of Unplaced Symbols, or Tools>Quick Reports>Symbol Availability Check will report the current PSMPATH and any symbols not found in those settings. You get a preview of the symbol to be placed when it is selected from the Place>Manually list. If you have the schematic and board in sync and both open, you can start Place>Manually in PCB Editor and pick parts to be placed from the schematic that are on the Place>Manually list, they will be attached to the cursor when the mouse enters the PCB Editor canvas.

At least on reason that you don't want to this is that you design could potentially have thousands of components within it, it is definitely NOT productive to start with "all" the parts in the canvas. If you only have a small number of components, you can opt to distribute them about a Package Keepin, or user pick, using Quickplace. Quickplace also has options to Place by Room, Schematic Page, Component Class and so on, to assist with placement.

That is just the way Allegro works.  There several different ways of laying out a board.  Some prefer to have everything placed outside the board and drag it in.  I myself just wouldn't want 4000 footprints setting outside my board and have to figure out which ones to drag in.  I prefer to work off the schematic and place based on reference designator.  I can go through the list of unplaced components and select the ones I want at that time or, if Capture or Design HDL is your front-end, you can interactively select a part in the schematic and the cooresponding footprint will attach to your cursor for placement on the board (nice if you use dual screens).  Allegro gives you the option of doing it how you would prefer.

Chad 

 Ok Thanks. I am learning Allegro coming from Pads and thought it was strange how this worked. Just a new way of doing things.

 Ok Thanks. I am learning Allegro coming from Pads and thought it was strange how this worked. Just a new way of doing things.