Setup - component kinds

Components with similar specification properties like bipolar an unipolar capacitors are handled by the same specification class. Components of the same class however can have a different component kind value. Components that are mostly distinguished by a part number (ne 555) instead of a value (1Ω, passives) are all handled by a generic component class. This includes transistors, ic’s, and more than 70 other component kinds. The reason behind this, is that is quite some work to implement a class. And it’s not worthwhile to implement a class if a single property (part number) already sets different components of the same kind apart.

In stock components, the component kind can be set in a ComponentKind part parameter or in the description ini of the category.

From schema components the lib/symbol is used to map them to a component kind. These mappings are defined in several xml files in the directory “Resources.Project.ComponentMappings”. Which are read at the startup of the script. For personal components it’s best to create a mapping file your self, so future updates don’t need to be merged.

Because there are so many, component kinds are generated from a xml file "Resources.Project.CodeGen\Component kinds.xml", this makes it possible to maintain them and keep their descriptions in a single location.