# Things I found difficult or unintuitive as a newcomer

**URL:** <https://librepcb.discourse.group/t/things-i-found-difficult-or-unintuitive-as-a-newcomer/747>\
**Category:** Improvement Ideas\
**Created:** [May 20, 2024, 11:03am UTC](https://librepcb.discourse.group/t/things-i-found-difficult-or-unintuitive-as-a-newcomer/747 "2024-05-20T11:03:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kevind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/85e7bf/32.png) [@kevind](https://librepcb.discourse.group/u/kevind)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 11:03am UTC](https://librepcb.discourse.group/t/things-i-found-difficult-or-unintuitive-as-a-newcomer/747/1 "2024-05-20T11:03:04Z")

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Firstly, I’m not a complete newcomer, I have used EDA, gEDA/Gschem and Eagle in the past.  
While I found my scratch experience of LibrePCB mostly intuitive, these are a few things which I have found difficult or non-intuitive.  
Please treat this as positive feedback, I am persevering up the learning curve/

1. If I decide I don’t want a particular {VALUE} text visible in the schematic, I can select and remove the text. That works as expected. Later I decide that removing it was a bad idea - how do I put it back ?

2. I like to have the refdes (eg R67) numbers grouped logically, especialy when using repeating circuit sub-elements. Having used R1 and R2 once, and then having deleted them, the refdes-assigner keeps re-using R1 and R2 when I actually expect to be adding R67 and R68. I know that I could go in and manually change all the refdes numbers, but is there a way to either re-assign automatically, or even a way to unassign them (in a selected block) so that they all go back to R?

3. When adding a new component to the schematic, I found that dropping the pin on top of the endpoint of an existing segment, does not automatically connect to that NET segment.  
I had expected that it would do this, or that it would prompt me “do you want to connect to N23”?  
It took me quite a while to discover that I have to drop the new pin “close but not touching”, draw a new segment to it, and then once connected I can move it back to where it should be.

4. Having got a warning about “Less than 2 pins in N50” I found it difficult to locate the offending N50. It turned out to be a tiny disconnected segment (probably a mouse-fart), which was difficult to spot in a crowded schematic. Please add my vote for the “search for Net” improvement request.

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**Author:** ![ubruhin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c89c15/32.png) [@ubruhin](https://librepcb.discourse.group/u/ubruhin)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 7:41am UTC](https://librepcb.discourse.group/t/things-i-found-difficult-or-unintuitive-as-a-newcomer/747/2 "2024-05-21T07:41:19Z")

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Hi @kevind,

Thanks for your feedback, highly appreciated!

> [@kevind](#):
>
> If I decide I don’t want a particular {VALUE} text visible in the schematic, I can select and remove the text. That works as expected. Later I decide that removing it was a bad idea - how do I put it back ?

Right-click on the symbol, then “Reset All Texts”.

> [@kevind](#):
>
> I know that I could go in and manually change all the refdes numbers, but is there a way to either re-assign automatically, or even a way to unassign them (in a selected block) so that they all go back to R?

Unassigning is by design not supported – without a unique name it would not be clear what happens with such components in all the data exports, ERC, DRC etc.

An automatic re-assignment of the whole schematic should be relatively easy to implement, I opened an issue for that:

> <https://github.com/LibrePCB/LibrePCB/issues/1393>
>
> \##### SUMMARY
> \<!-- Describe what feature should be added or improved, or what u…sability flaw
> you encountered. Provide screenshots if reasonable. --\>
> 
> Many iterations of modifications in a schematic can make component names (R1, R2, R3, ...) to become unordered and thus unintuitive and feeling "messy". Thus it would be handy to allow re-numbering all components automatically.
> 
> Initial feature request: https://librepcb.discourse.group/t/things-i-found-difficult-or-unintuitive-as-a-newcomer/747
> 
> \##### SOLUTION
> \<!-- Optionally, propose how the feature or improvement could be implemented, or
> how other EDA tools have implemented it and if you like it or not. --\>
> 
> In the schematic editor, probably just a new menu item is needed in the main menu, with a confirmation dialog which quickly explains what will happen. Then assigning all components of the project depending on their location - starting from the first page to the last page, from top to bottom, left to right. Maybe a more sophisticated solution could be chosen, e.g. respecting groups of components but that's probably too much magic :thinking:

> [@kevind](#):
>
> When adding a new component to the schematic, I found that dropping the pin on top of the endpoint of an existing segment, does not automatically connect to that NET segment.  
> I had expected that it would do this, or that it would prompt me “do you want to connect to N23”?

Yes this is simply not implemented yet. Sooner or later it will be there 😉

> [@kevind](#):
>
> Having got a warning about “Less than 2 pins in N50” I found it difficult to locate the offending N50. It turned out to be a tiny disconnected segment (probably a mouse-fart), which was difficult to spot in a crowded schematic. Please add my vote for the “search for Net” improvement request.

Ack 👍 I think there are even already 2 issues open which would help in this situation.