Well, I'm sure the behaviour is not randomly, but it certainly feels like that. In the Property Editor, when I right click on a property and choose Display and then change the Display Format from “Do Not Display” to “Value Only” for displaying the property value in the schematic, I get this Error Message:
However, when looking in the schematic the property value is visible, so the edit apparently had an effect.
On the same level of confusion, when opening the Display Properties window again, the Display Format is still set to “Do Not Display”. However, if I first click on the property name, for example PART_NUMBER in the figure above, and then right click on the number in the yellow field and open the Display Properties window the Display Format is correctly set to “Value Only”.
I’m using OrCAD Capture CIS 17.4 and I don’t think I had this issue in 17.2. My general feeling is that there are a number of similar issues, as the one just described, in 17.4. Some of which were probably already present in 17.2. So as feedback for the next release, please focus on fixing issues like this that makes the tool confusing and hard to use, instead of changing the style of buttons and colour schemes.
/F