Hi Greg,
Actually there is a better way to do this:
- Drag the unedited symbol from your document into the Library List under My Symbols (for neatness you may first want to rightclick on My Libraries and choose New Folder, e.g. "Blocks" and then, under that, "Biamp")
- When you drag the symbol into the Library List it will be given a default name, like "Symbol1" - type in the name of your choice, e.g. Nexia SP.
- Doubleclick on the symbol in the Library List and click on Yes when asked if you want to edit the symbol. This opens up the newly-created symbol file for editing.
- (Optional) I find it easiest to set Grid settings to match the Block Schematic environment. Rightclick anywhere on the document and select Document, go to the Grid page and enter 2.5mm for the X and Y grid spacing. This makes it easy to position IO stubs.
- Edit the symbol howsoever you please. Note that as you are editing the base symbol file you do not need to mess about with Lock/Unlock.
- Save and close the file
- Drag the symbol into your document
The advantages of using this method are (a) the edited symbol can be used over and over again, (b) the symbol, including any objects you've added, behaves as a single entity in your document and (c) you wll be able to connect Cables and Doglegs to any newly created IO stubs, and they will follow the symbol as you move it. This would not happen if you just added IO stubs to a symbol already in your document.
re: your question about 'children': A symbol is treated as a single object, but it is made up of other objects like lines, rectangles, text etc. These objects are its children. A symbol (i.e. the reference to that symbol) can be on a layer, e.g. 'Work Layer', but its children can be on different layers: lines forming IO stubs can be on "Audio Circuit Paths" or "Video Circuit Paths" etc, while the red outline of the symbol is on the "Outline" layer, and so on.
If you have selected a symbol and you choose a new layer for that symbol, the question about children pops up. Answer Yes and the component objects of the symbol will also move to the new layer. This is generally a Bad Thing. Answering No, however, will leave the component objects on their current layers and only move the parent (i.e. the reference to the symbol) to the new layer. Unless I knew exactly what I wanted to do I would check "Set all children in the selection like this" box and click on NO.
Note also that if you hide the layer that a symbol is on, its children will also be hidden, even if they are on layers that are visible. Inheritance from a child's parent takes precedence over any other inheritance.
Generally, though, there is not much need to move symbols to different layers and I suspect you came across this by accidentally selecting a symbol when really all you wanted to do was move some Cables and/or Doglegs to new layers.
I hope this is helpful.
Kind regards,
Rob Robinson
Stardraw.com