Faster refactoring in Altium Designer 19: Quickly converting a circuit fragment to a new sub-sheet

Question

In the process of refactoring a large schematic sheet into smaller, more manageable, hierarchical sheets in AD19 I have the following process:

1. Create a new schematic sheet for the sub-circuit and save it
2. Edit/Refactor/Move Selected Subcircuit to Different Sheet
3. Copy all connection net labels from new sheet to old
4. In the new sheet: manually convert net labels to ports
5. In the old parent sheet: add a sheet symbol, add sheet entries (using Sheet Symbol Actions/ Synchronize Sheet Entries and Ports)
6. Connect copied net labels to the new sheet symbol

This seems like it should be much faster... in fact, it seems like it should be 1 click in the refactoring menu (like what happens with Part Actions/Push Part to Sheet). My process works fine, it's just slow and tedious now that I know how to better structure my design.

Is there a better way? Are there some AD19 features I don't know about that will speed this up?

Answer 1

No. I'm not aware of a better way.

The only minor change I would make to your list is in Step 4: 4) Use Copy, then Smart Paste to convert net labels to ports on the new sheet.

Also, for step 5 you could use 'Create Sheet Symbol from sheet' to save you some mouse clicks.

This results in a new sheet symbol with the file parameter filled out, and all of the new sheets entries already inserted. Good luck!