Using Queries in Altium Designer
Underlying Altium Designer's schematic and PCB editors is a powerful query engine. By entering queries into this engine you can logically scope precisely those objects you require. A query is a string you enter using specific keywords and syntax, which will return the targeted objects.
There are a number of places where you can apply a query but command central are the Filter panels shown in the images below.
Queries can be defined in a Filter panel to select a group of objects in the schematic, schematic symbol, PCB, or PCB footprint editor. To use a Filter panel to select a required group of objects, perform the following steps:
- Open the Filter panel (press F12 to display/hide the panel).
- In the text field of the panel, define a query. You can type a query directly into the field. As you type, a prompt list of possible keywords will appear as an aid. To provide aid in the creation of queries, a number of tools are available:
- The Query Helper dialog.
- By defining the objects to be found in the Find Similar Objects dialog with the Create Expression option enabled.
- When using the PCB Filter or PCBLIB Filter panel – the settings in the Object and Layer regions of the panel and the Query Builder dialog.
- Enable the Select option in the panel.
- Configure other settings in the panel to define the scope of searching, what should be done with non-matching objects, etc.
- Click the Apply / Apply to All / Apply to Selected button.
All of the objects which are members of the query result set subsequently acquire a selected state, ready to be edited.