Variant Management

Old Content - visit altium.com/documentation

Modified by Susan Riege on Jun 11, 2015

Parent page: WorkspaceManager Dialogs

The Variant Management Dialog.

Summary

The Variant Management dialog enables you to add, remove and edit variants of the main PCB board design.

Access

The Variant Management dialog can be accessed by clicking Project » Variants. Or,
In Sch Editor, right click a component and select Part Actions » Variants.

Options/Controls

Variants

List all the Variants used in the project

Add - Click this button to add a new variant of the PCB project. A Variant column appears allowing you to toggle the Fitted status (Fitted or Not Fitted) of each logical component in the Schematic documents.
Delete - If there are PCB variants present, choose a variant from the Project Components list above to remove.
Rename - Rename a variant
Parameter - Click this button to access Variant parameter dialog, which allows you to add/delete/edit Variant Parameters.

Fitted Components

The Assembly Variant management is a tool that manages variants of a PCB project and still retain only one PCB project only. If variants are available for the PCB project, then each Variant column will appear next to the Project Components columns. In each Variant column, you have the ability to toggle the Fitted status of each logical component. Right click mouse button to have access to different menu items from the pop up menu. You can also cross probe a highlighted component from this dialog.

Project Components - Here lists the logical and physical designators of all components used in the design, along with component type and source document where the component can be found.

Component Parameters

For each component you can have parameter variations. In each Variant column within the Parameter Variations table, you have the ability to toggle the Fitted status of each parameter. Right click mouse button to have access to different menu items from the pop up menu. You can also cross probe a highlighted parameter from this dialog.

Menu - Click this button to have access to various menu items such as; adding, editing or removing a variant, how to mark schematic components that are not present in a variant design with a Variant Drawing Style or generating a detailed variant report.

Drawing Style - Click this button to access the Variant Options dialog, from where you can define how non-fitted components and varied parameters will appear, both in the compiled document view of the schematic, and in schematic prints. You can also define appearance for these components in PCB assembly drawings.

Fit to Width - Check this option to adjust the width of the column.

When editing a variant, it must first be selected. This is achieved by clicking anywhere within that variant's column and verified by the column background color changing to grey.

Logical designators are those designators assigned to the components of the source schematics. Physical designators are those designators that are assigned to the components once they are placed in the PCB design. This is particularly relevant when considering multi-channel designs. The logical designators for the replicated channel components may be the same, but each component must have a unique physical designator in the PCB design.