Add Arduino support to the programming window

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on June 04, 2010 11:15:21

The Arduino syntax file has already added in r4210 (/trunk/fritzing/translations/syntax/arduino.xml).

This syntax file needs to be modified to fully support the Arduino syntax. I also need to add the language to the programming drop-down.

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/fritzing/issues/detail?id=1101

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on June 04, 2010 11:07:38

r4215 : changed the language name attribute in arduino.xml: 'Arduino' will now automatically show up in the programming drop-down.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on June 09, 2010 11:15:54

Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enhancement

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on June 16, 2010 13:18:50

Labels: Component-Program

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on June 29, 2010 23:14:04

Owner: bryant.mairs

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 06, 2010 11:49:40

http://johanneshoff.com/arduino-command-line.html http://www.arduino.cc/en/Hacking/BuildProcess http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/WindowsCommandLine These discuss some of the ways people have been using the command line to compile/program for Arduino.

[davidperrenoud]

From andre.knoerig@gmail.com on July 06, 2010 12:21:16

Two more: https://code.google.com/p/arduino/issues/detail?id=124 https://code.google.com/p/angbt/ And a comment from mellis from the Arduino team: "I think angbt might be a decent option; it's probably similar to what we'll end up doing for Arduino 1.0. That is, a command line interface to Java code that does basically the same thing as the current IDE (as opposed to a makefile or alternative build tool that replicates the build process)."

Status: Accepted

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 06, 2010 16:49:04

So for programming the Arduino you need to specify the board for compilation and programming. How would we integrate a Target UI element into our GUI? I imagine just a dropdown that could appear/disappear based on the language you have selected.

I'm going to look into the angbt project. It hasn't had any activity recently, but looks like it's stable. I'm going to also try to get in touch with the Arduino devs to figure out a deadline for official CLI support.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 06, 2010 23:34:21

I notice that the angbt page doesn't list mac as a supported platform, so it would be good to determine whether that's really the case, and if so, why not.

As to the target chip UI element, one thought would be use the chip that they had already dropped into the sketch. The question is whether users would want to be able to program independently of sketch content. In which case, still use the dropdown, but if there's already an arduino in the sketch, then default the dropdown to that choice.

Note that PICAXE handles the same problem by having different compilers/downloaders for different microcontrollers, so the chip is chosen when you select the programmer executable.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 07, 2010 00:41:46

on further thought, maybe rather than adding a second dropdown, change the "language" dropdown to the "microcontroller" dropdown, and the default choice is the microcontroller that exists in the sketch.

[davidperrenoud]

From andre.knoerig@gmail.com on July 07, 2010 01:59:52

The angbt FAQ say that the reason why there is no Mac support is just that the developer doesn't have a Mac. :)

Concerning the UI, it's all there, no? The label "Language" could be changed to "Microcontroller", but it should just be "Arduino". The type of Arduino should be selected in the "Programmer" drop-down. In there, select "Locate.." to point to the Arduino directory, and then the drop-down should be populated with all the various Arduinos. The default selection could then still be the one in the sketch.

Bryant, if you want to get in touch with the Arduino team to find out about their roadmap, I can hook you up with mellis.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 07, 2010 03:36:57

Clarifying comment 10: the label "language" could be changed to "microcontroller type" but the value there should remain "arduino" or "picaxe"; the specific microcontroller (i.e. mini, nano, etc.) should be chosen in the second dropdown, based on the value of the first dropdown.

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 11, 2010 10:53:23

I've been checking out the angbt project and it looks like there's a lot of extra configuration to get it set up correctly on a given system. It relies on a host of external tools to do everything for it and so the location of these tools all has to be determined ahead of time.

I would think moving the Programmer button into a preferences dialog that can store the programmers for all the languages would be the way to go at this point. I'll whip up an example GUI and attach it once it's done. I don't think we should rely on a user to configure angbt externally.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 12, 2010 01:45:39

Are the external tools all separate installations, or do they get installed along with with arduino and java? Do we know enough about these tools to be able to search for them in the file system programmatically?

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 12, 2010 09:11:31

Angbt relies partially on all the configuration files from the Arduino install, but requires installation of avr-dude, avr-gcc, avr-libc on Linux and for Windows you can just install winavr to get all the programs that are required.

This was all obtained from https://code.google.com/p/angbt/wiki/AngInstall .

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 13, 2010 01:37:52

It looks like at least for some of the packages on linux, he asks for a separate installation, even though there actually are versions installed along with Arduino. So would angbt still work if you pointed it to the versions installed with the arduino installation. And how different would this be across platforms.

In other words, I wonder if it would be possible for the user only to tell fritzing where the arduino installation was, and from there the software figures out the rest of the pointers to give angbt.

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 13, 2010 09:20:57

I'll try that out and see what happens. I only have access to a Mac, though, so I'll see how far I can get with this this week.

Also you mentioned you know an Arduino dev you could put me in touch with. Could you introduce me? It'd be nice to see their plans for this functionality.

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 24, 2010 12:49:10

So it looks like Ang can compile Arduino code correctly using only the programs included with the Arduino download.

I'm going to work now to see if I can hook up Ang to the programming window codebase. After that will come the configuration of Ang, which should only rely on knowing the location of the Arduino executable and the Ang executable.

So if we wanted to use Ang with Fritzing, would we distribute it with it or rely on it as a separate download? It uses the MIT license, so we could distribute it with Fritzing, but I'm not certain of what needs to be done if we do that. I assume we should contact the author.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 24, 2010 14:36:20

Great news--looking forward to the hookup.

I'm guessing it would be a separate download, but maybe we'd provide a pointer. For example, if the user selected "arduino", maybe the first time he clicked the "Programmer: locate" button, it would explain that both the arduino and angbt packages needed to be installed and where to get them. We should probably do something similar with the picaxe package.

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 24, 2010 18:39:09

Maybe a first-run help screen would be helpful for the programming window? It could open when you first open the programming window and introduce the window, some of its paradigms, and explain the toolchain and any required downloads.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 24, 2010 22:56:32

I like that idea. Perhaps, since the programming window is already a text window, the help text could just be the default opening text, disappearing as soon as you type something in or load a file. Maybe it's a different color/face/font to distinguish it from actual program text.

Cc: andre.knoerig

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 25, 2010 09:58:53

I would vote to separate the help text from the programming window text. A popup window would be ideal, preferably with a checkbox to disable help for next time. A lot of programs do it this way and I think it makes a lot of sense.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on July 25, 2010 10:17:37

I'd argue that the first time help for sketches appears in the window itself rather than a separate popup, so adding it to the programming window itself keeps things more consistent (and gives you fewer windows to wrestle with).

But I don't feel particularly passionate about it either way, so if there's another strong opinion out there, speak up.

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on July 25, 2010 11:06:36

I'd throw it in a popup as it's more clear that it's help text. This way we can also include the checkbox.

The reason the help within the first-time help in the sketch works is it's a graphical environment and so the help is cleanly separated to stand out, with text in a textbox, that won't be the case. I have a pretty good idea of how this should look, so I'll try to whip up some code for it at some point.

Back to actually integrating Ang with Arduino, it's not very easy to do, at least on the mac. I've attached a patch that does what I need on the mac, but it's not complete. The mac version also can't run to completion with only Arduino installed as Ang calls things with a different name than they are in the Mac binary.

At this point I believe Ang can't work on a Mac. This is my only testing machine, so I'm not certain how it will work in other environments. I've posted an issue to the Ang project, so we'll see how he responds.

I'm going to try to get in touch with the Arduino devs and see if they can give me a timeline on Arduino support.

Attachment: arduino.patch

[davidperrenoud]

From bryant.m...@gmail.com on August 09, 2010 14:08:07

So an update from the Arduino dev community: a command-line interface will be included in the 1.0 September release. I'm still not certain if I will be involved in its development or not, but it's gonna happen. I'm going to propose excluding Arduino support from Fritzing releases until that release ships.

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on February 07, 2012 15:33:26

Owner: irasc...@gmail.com

[davidperrenoud]

From andre.knoerig@gmail.com on January 16, 2013 10:38:47

Arduino command-line functionality is finally coming with their version 1.5.2: https://code.google.com/p/arduino/issues/detail?id=124

Labels: -Priority-Medium Priority-High

[davidperrenoud]

From irasc...@gmail.com on January 20, 2013 00:25:58

Status: Duplicate
Mergedinto: 1794