Overview

Introduction

The current parts library of Fritzing is very limited. Our basic set is really basic. This is for two reasons; one is that we just didn’t have the time yet to create an extended parts library. The other is that we didn’t want to crowd the library palette before we had a good system of organizing parts.
But no man overboard. You can create your own parts!

Structure

The basic structure of a part in Fritzing is just a folder with a partdescription.xml file therein.

The other files in this folder are image files. The icons are used in the library palette and the part images are drawn on the canvas in the breadboard view, depending on the zoom level.

When Fritzing starts up, it looks for partdescription.xml files to load the parts from. It looks for these partdescription.xml files in the /libaries folder of your fritzing distribution. There is a /libaries/core folder which holds the default part set that come with Fritzing. There is also a /libaries/user folder in which you can create your own parts.

Quick Start

A. Just copy an existing part from /core

The fastest way to create a new part is just to:

1. select a part from our default library which looks most like the part you need (e.g. same number of pins)
2. copy this part from our library in /libaries/core into your own /libaries/user folder
3. modify the partdescription.xml file
4. relaunch Fritzing and check the result

Or for new IC parts: B. use the tools in our PDK

If you want to create a new IC part, i.e. a part that has the shape of a DIL-package, a chip with two rows of pins, use a special script we created to assist you.
Download our PDK (Parts Developer Kit), locate the DilPackageGenerator folder and use the generator.py python script therein. [PDK and the PDK User Guide to be released soon.]

Organization

Every part is part of a family. And every part has an identifier to set it apart from other parts.

The system we use to identify a part is its species and its genus. The genus is the family name, the species specializes the individual in this family.
We organized the genus system in a family tree, our parts taxonomy. New parts should be classified in this taxonomy. It’s not completely rock solid fixed yet, but it is stable enough to define your parts in.

What can I do with my new parts?

When you finished designing your part and you think it would also be useful to others, please contribute!
We are working on a community website to share your parts and your designs. But for now please email your part to parts@fritzing.org. We’ll try to ship your parts in the next release.

Where to go on next?

Step by Step Part Design Tutorial

A simple tutorial explaining how to create a new part, a small diode in this example.

Part Development Kit (PDK)

Download the Part Development Kit (PDK) from the downloads section. In the PDK, you’ll find svg documents of all the parts which we made plus some useful tools to create your own.

Part Designers Guideline Document (coming soon)

If you are making parts to be shared amongst others and want them to be default in Fritzing, we like you to make them as compelling as our parts. To assist you in the design of a consistent visual and behavioral experience of parts, please read the Part Designers Guidelines.

Reference of Terms used in partdescription.xml (coming soon)

Find out more specifics in the Reference section about what you put in the partdescription.xml file or how to use the tools in the PDK.