How do I change the properties of several objects at once?

Question

I have several lines and arcs in an EAGLE footprint library I need to modify to make thicker. In Altium it's straightforward to hold Ctrl, click on a bunch of objects, open up their properties and change them all at once. In EAGLE I have no idea.

EAGLE's "group" paradigm seems a little far-flung from the standard, so my attempts to use that may be a dead end, but is there some better way? Is there some magic command I could run to give every single line and arc in a library part on layer X a thickness of Y? How about in a PCB, smashing all the parts and changing all their labels to font Z with size W?

Answer 1

You probably need the change ("wrench") tool available from the GUI. But it might also worth considering using some Eagle commands for that purpose.

Assuming for example you want to change the thickness of your wires to 30 mil, first you have to select those tracks as usual, then you might issue the following commands:

change width 30 mil
(> 0 0)

The (> 0 0) part simulate the right-click required to apply changes.

If you need to change the thickness of all the wires, this might be scripted even further:

display none top
group all
change width 30 mil
(> 0 0)
display last

Answer 2

Yes, the "group" paradigm is what you're looking for most of the time. Yes, it is as clunky as you think it is. There's no premade magic command. You can shift+drag (pretty sure it's shift, maybe control, been a while) selection boxes to add more objects to an existing group selection.

One thing you can try is to turn off all layers except the one you want to modify and then box select everything and use the group tool that way. Other than that, you may want to look into Eagle's ULP/scripting functionality to make yourself a command.

Answer 3

Enter the command:

cha wid 0.234

Where you replace "0.234" with the width you want in whatever your current units are. This is a short way to enter the "change width" command. Most Eagle command names and other keywords can be abbreviated to three letters. For more details on the "change" command, enter HELP CHANGE.

Then just click on any wires you want changed. Yes, it really is that easy.

Answer 4

Don't know if it is too late for this, but you could use a ULP(User Language Program) to change the width of all the traces on the board.

Go to File -> Run ULP.. -> Type "cmd-change-brd-width.ulp" -> Open

It will open up a dialog box and you can use that to change the width of multiple wires at the same time.