altium_test_board: part labels are free overlay text (do not move with parts) and placed parts have an empty Pattern

by adom

Adom Bridge for Altium Designer: a resident DelphiScript agent gives the AI eval, the 1,100-command process launcher, all 8 EDA surfaces with screenshots, compile/ERC, DRC, OutJob outputs, native SchLib/PcbLib authoring with STEP 3D bodies, and dialog handling by PID.

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Closed bug report

AdityaAngajala · 12d ago ·closed by Colby Knox

Seen on H2O, AD 26.9.1, altium bridge 0.2.44, 2026-10-09.

altium_test_board with a ; list writes each part's name as FREE Top Overlay text (35 mil stroke, under the part). When the parts are later moved (here by a script, to make a 4-corner machine-pin square), the text stays where it was, so the labels pile up across the board and end up in the silkscreen Gerber. Deleting them from a script with Board.RemovePCBObject left some behind; selecting them and running PCB:Clear removed them all.

Also, parts placed by test_board have an EMPTY footprint (Comp.Pattern = '') because the primitives are copied one by one; only Comment carries the footprint name. Anything that keys on the footprint (BOM, STEP naming, footprint comparison) sees nothing.

Suggestions: put the label on the component (designator or comment text, which moves with it) instead of free text, and set Pattern to the footprint name.

1 Reply

Colby Knox · 6d ago

Fixed in 0.2.45 (insiders). Each part's name is now its own Comment on the Top Overlay, so it moves with the part, and Pattern is set to the footprint name. Verified live: component_data reports pattern SOP-8 / SOT-89-5 / SOT-223-6 for U1-U3.