Custom designators and comments in PCB Footprints

This is a valid question and I don't know how to do what you want and haven't needed to do this myself.  However, I had thought it could be simply done as a workaround by filtering for text on the top overlay layer and then drag selecting the text (while holding the CTRL key since it is not free text) and then hiding the text with the PCB Inspector tool.

I can get as far as the last step but it won't let me hide the text.This is presumably because filtering can only go as far as all text and so includes text other than designators.  That is, there may be text for numbering of connectors or a + sign on a capacitor that is also on top overlay.  Since this is also text it passes the filter but I would not want to hide it even if I could.

I found I can set rotation, and whimsically, I can change the string so all the text says the same thing.  However, I can't change many of the other parameters (such as hide, bold, lock) unless I tediously pick all the .designator type text.  What parameters can and cannot be changed is not intuitive to me and is not at professional use level in my opinion.

I'm responding to your post because it is another case where we as users need to have improved ability to filter so it is much more like in Altium Designer.  There is definitely some room here for improved functionality in a future release (hopefully sooner rather than later).

This is a valid question and I don't know how to do what you want and haven't needed to do this myself.  However, I had thought it could be simply done as a workaround by filtering for text on the top overlay layer and then drag selecting the text (while holding the CTRL key since it is not free text) and then hiding the text with the PCB Inspector tool.

I can get as far as the last step but it won't let me hide the text.This is presumably because filtering can only go as far as all text and so includes text other than designators.  That is, there may be text for numbering of connectors or a + sign on a capacitor that is also on top overlay.  Since this is also text it passes the filter but I would not want to hide it even if I could.

I found I can set rotation, and whimsically, I can change the string so all the text says the same thing.  However, I can't change many of the other parameters (such as hide, bold, lock) unless I tediously pick all the .designator type text.  What parameters can and cannot be changed is not intuitive to me and is not at professional use level in my opinion.

I'm responding to your post because it is another case where we as users need to have improved ability to filter so it is much more like in Altium Designer.  There is definitely some room here for improved functionality in a future release (hopefully sooner rather than later).

In the PCB editor you can hide all the designators for selected components by using the object inspector Show Name property. Use the component filter to make sure just components are selected otherwise the option will not appear.