Really you need to have a reuse at the schematic level befor= e you can expect any intelligent behaviour in the pcb tool.

I've done multi channel designs with hierarchical schema= tics before... The rename just becomes X1/R1 -> X2/R1 etc...

My rename plugin might still be floating about somewhere &qu= ot;sedrename"... Now we've got more plugins committed with the mai= n repository, it might be fun to dig that one out and include it too... Was= very handy when your transformation between channels can be expressed as a= regex.

The main downside with heirarchical refdes is the silkscreen= and board fab house. They HATED IT. Couldn't cope with the long heirar= chical refdes, didn't WANT to cope with the patch I applied to just put= the last heirarchical part on the silk by each part, but then drew boxes m= anually with module designations.

In the end, I used pcb's renumber feature to assign comp= letely new refdes on the board, but instead of back annotating (impossible = as we stand, with heirarchical schematics), I added a quick kludgy patch to= read back in the rename file, so pcb could map between the gnetlist produc= ed heirarchical netlist, and the flat refdes on the board.

Made debugging extra fun, having to manually indirect from h= eirarchical schematic refdes to on board refdes, but at least it didn't= upset the board assembly fab!

I suppose I could also have post proceed out a flattened set= of schematics with the renamed refdes if that became useful.

On 19 Jan 2016 14:51, "M. J. Everitt (m DOT j DOT everitt AT iee DOT org) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:

On 19/01/16 13:58, Nicklas Karlsson (nicklas DOT karlsson17 AT gmail DOT com) [via
geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:<= br> >>> I tested and as far as I understand it works like this:
>>> x is old refdes number
>>> n increase with this value
>>> Rx --> Rx+n
>>>
>>> I have subsheets and numbers look like this:
>>> x is old refdes number
>>> n increase with this value
>>> want this S2/S1/Rx --> S2/S1+n/Rx
>>> but get this S2/S1/Rx --> S2/S1+n/Rx
>>> and the need is to change subsheet number and use this for ano= ther channel.
>>>
>>> For rename to work reasonable well there must be an integer di= fference between refdeses for different channels. Default for subsheet is S= n/Sn/Rx there where are two level of hierachy but it use quite a lot of spa= ce. To add an integer value to refdes use less space. I could add some kind= of wild card so that both changing subsheet and adding an integer value to= current subsheet works?
>>>
>>> I also add comment then this is used. Sometimes layout data ne= ed to be reused for several channels and in such case it is possible to sim= ply select the layout, copy, rename refdeses and paste. Then doing a multi = channel copy and paste really speed up design work.
>>>
>> For this purpose, if you have a schematic, I just use "Autonu= mber
>> attributes" in gschem ...
> Well gschem is not a problem. If you have done the layout of one chann= el for example a half bridge in a three phase circuit it is possiblo to cop= y and paste this layout including lines for copper traces but to get connec= tions right refdeses must be changed.
>
> To copy layout for one a channel in pcb is really powerful yet simple = to understand. Ideally somewhere in the future I think selector to select w= hich subcircuit currently is worked on for this purpose would be an improve= ment but simple copy is essentially already there.
>
> Nicklas Karlsson
I can see your dilemma. Perhaps the best way to handle this (as I've seen in other apps) is simply to add a '_copy' suffix to the refdes= when
you paste it, and then handle renaming from there. It's a difficult
case, I can see what you'd like to do .. but in practise I think there&= #39;s
a lot of code required to figure out your netlisting mix/match .. the
software has no way of knowing where your 'new' circuit has come fr= om,
or what you want to 'assign' it to in an existing netlist/schematic= , so
it would have to be a very simple rename rule.

MJE