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How to view net names in the schematic editor?

r.gibson

I am trying to view net names in the schematic editor, but can't figure out how to do it...it seems like such an obvious thing that if you hover the mouse over a net, it should display the net name in the lower info bar along with the grid coordinates...or perhaps in the SCH Inspector...but alas, it does not appear in either...

  • 0

    I can appreciate where you are coming from but CS just doesn't work this way. Once you get into multi-sheet hierarchical designs with repeated blocks net names are not as simple as they might first appear. The PCB document does contain the ultimate net name and you can use cross probing between the schematic and PCB to check what name has been used for a net.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Ok...but within a particular sheet, how do I know whether two wires belong to the same net or not? Altium regularly breaks connections as I adjust the positions of components on the schematic and doesn't cleanly expand and contract wires and requires much "messing with" to ensure that connections are maintained. Also when using manually assigned net names, I have difficulty feeling confident that the net name that I have assigned has "attached" to a particular net. If Altium could display what the net name that I have selected is, it would help alleviate my concerns considerably. Most schematic capture programs that I have used have this as an informative "mouse-over" feature...

  • 0 in reply to r.gibson

    You can use the Tools | Underline Connections command that will highlight a selected net on a sheet - all the wires that are considered to be part of the net. Unfortunately this still does not get you a net name.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Thanks Peter, that's better than nothing...I'll give it a try when I get home.

     

    Would it be possible to request this feature from Altium (at least local (sheet level) mouse-over net-name indication)?

     

    Also, I would really like it if they fixed the wiring issue...we should be able to easily reposition a group of components, or an IC without having to spend a significant amount of time "fixing" the wiring every time...the schematic editor should be smart enough to adjust the wiring based on connections...as it is, if I move one IC closer to another adjacent IC that are wired together, invariably the wires end up impaling the IC that I am moving closer to and I then have to resize the wires or sometimes even delete and rewire them entirely...almost every time. It's VERY cumbersome...I would say it even defeats the purpose of eCAD...its only slightly better than using Autocad for schematics...the freeware tools I used prior to purchasing CS worked better than this...I'm starting to question my purchase decision...

  • 0

    If you compile the sheet, you can press ALT and click in a wire, it will then highlight all items on that net.  You have to compile after making changes for this to work, which is a pain, but quite handy.

  • 0 in reply to r.gibson

    I will make Altium aware of your improvement request. One suggestion for when moving a component around on the schematic creating too many wiring issues, if you hold CTRL when starting to move the component it detaches from the wires rather than drags them along.