Forums » CircuitLab Feature Requests

When editing component values, there is not enough room to enter a lengthy expression. The ability to expand the text box as in the general Text entry box would allow the user to see the whole expression clearly thereby making the entry and subsequent editing less error prone.

Thanks.

To clarify: the whole expression can be entered but only part of it can be seen in the text editing box at any time so editing it can be difficult.

Although you can see what you're typing in the on-screen text, sometimes this is obscured by the editing box itself.

With the addition of behavioural sources it is now more important to be able to edit expressions easily and clearly.

Obviously expressions can be edited in an external editor (actually quite a good idea if the editor has syntax highlighting!) and then pasted into the CircuitLab editing box but this then shows up another minor problem with these text boxes (and the dedicated Text Element box).

The problem is that pasting text in from elsewhere does not always show up the text on the schematic. Quite often I have to manually enter some text (it may just need a single character: I'm not sure) after pasting in a block of text before the whole text including that which I pasted in, appears in the schematic.

If I don't do that the text stays in the editing box but is not shown on the schematic even after closing the editing box.

FYI: this is observed when using Chromium on 64bit Linux Mint Debian Edition but I think it also does this in Chrome on 32 bit Win XP Pro.

What is the use case, or, more explicitly, why do you need to insert lengthy expression into the component value areas? Genuine question, I've not had any need for this but I can see how it would be troublesome.

There does seem to be a 12-character limit on the displayed characters for creating a custom part, but most part numbers are shorter than this.

Hi Kevin,

An example is the expression for I1 in:

or V4 in:

or Iint1 and V3 in:

Incidentally, this is one reason I have asked (https://www.circuitlab.com/forums/support/topic/n98tb8z5/feature-request-parameters-please/) for the ability to parameterize variables like in SPICE. Then expressions can be entered with parameters or even rolled up in a .func statement which can abbreviate the expressions used in the behavioural sources etc.

:)

This problem is not limited to the component value text entry boxes.

I'm certain @signality shares the related problem of dealing with text elements. In the above schematic, there are nice blocks of text that document the schematic. The text entry window shows two short (<30 character) lines that won't together even show a normal full line of text.

And the text in those fields is primitive; it would be nice if it used this same markup capability. I cannot even get it to show an empty line, except by insetting an underscore or a period into it...

@CarlSawtell, indeed I do.

Your comments bring together this and another feature request about text boxes etc:

https://www.circuitlab.com/forums/support/topic/z7zbs75m/feature-request-movable-component-and-text-boxes-whilst/

Even though the schematic text entry window can be resized and the text in this window scrolled up and down within the outer Text Element editing box, the outer box itself can't be moved so the basic limitations discussed above still stand.

Hooray, hooray!

Pasting text into text element and component value boxes now seems to work properly and Ctrl-A does now select all the text in such boxes.

Deep joy.

Hey, the text now wraps in the Text Element box!

Component Parameters text box next?

:)

"Hey, the text now wraps in the Text Element box!"

But it always has.

I really shouldn't post late at night.