Integrated libraries are a useful feature of CircuitStudio (and Altium Designer). These libraries contain schematic symbols, footprints and 3D models all compiled into the one single file. Many integrated libraries are made freely available by Altium at https://designcontent.live.altium.com/. This type of library can be considered 'read only' because you cannot directly edit the contents - a great format for distributing libraries to engineers to use for their designs when you have an engineering library manager. In this article we explain how to 'explode' the library, edit the contents and then rebuild back to an integrated library.
Let's assume you have been given an integrated library MyComps.IntLib and asked to update with a new component, and also assume you have not worked on this library before.
- Create a folder MyComps in your CircuitStudio project directory.
- Copy MyComps.IntLib into the new folder.
- Run CircuitStudio and use File > Open Library...
- Click Extract Sources to break the library into its constituent parts
- Within your project folder a new folder MyComps will have been created containing your SchLib, PcbLib and LibPkg project file.
- Within the Project panel you will see Source Documents and the SchLib and PcbLib files
- Edit the individual SchLib and PcbLib files as normal using CircuitStudio's library editors
- Once finished compile the library - right click on the LibPkg entry in the Projects panel and select Compile Integrated Library
- The compiled library will be in the Outputs folder of you library project
The key points are that the newly compiled IntLib will be in the Outputs sub-folder and you right click on the project to find the compile option.