chipKIT® Development Platform

Inspired by Arduino™

Looking for a Better IDE

Created Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:28:09 +0000 by avenue33

avenue33

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:28:09 +0000

Hi,

The MPIDE provides an out-of-the-box, ready-to-use, instant-rewarding, stable and easy IDE to build projects on both chipKIT and Arduino platforms.

But because chipKIT boards offer much more power in MHz, I/Os, memory, IMHO they deserve a more powerful IDE with all the modern niceties.

I've been looking around; here's what I've found so far:

  • full plug-ins like Visual Micro for Visual Studio or AVR tool for Eclipse
  • Makefile, here, here and there but with many stability issues hard to solve because of that specific cryptic language,
  • Command-line Arduino IDE like the Ino project, which simulates the Arduino IDE pre-process and avoid the horrendous makefile.

The last two solutions could address a larger number of IDEs, although they require customisation.

As all Mac users, Xcode is installed and ready to run on my MacBook. Before that, Xcode requires some settings, either a standard project or a template —or even minimal template. Templates from Xcode 3 are not upward compatible with Xcode 4 :(.

What do you think? What features to consider?

Jacob Christ

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:46:13 +0000

Currently we use a combination of the QT Creator IDE with MPIDE as a download tool. There has been some talk around here to customize the QT Creator IDE with the ability to talk to avrdude so that we can do 100% of our development in QT Creator.

By around here, I mean pontech.com

Jacob

WestfW

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:22:47 +0000

Is there a ChipKit project/setup for MPIDE ?

Jacob Christ

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:42:17 +0000

Is there a ChipKit project/setup for MPIDE ?

I don't understand this question. MPIDE is setup for chipKIT.

Jacob

avenue33

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:36:26 +0000

Here is a very interesting Arduino plug-in for Eclipse.

Since MPIDE goes closer to Arduino 1.0 and Eclipse is available on Windows / OS X / Linux, I hope the plug-in is going to address chipKIT also.

WestfW

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:50:22 +0000

Oops. Should be "Is there a chipKit setup for MPLAB X ?" MPLAB is Microchip's IDE for PICs. Version 10 ("X") is multiplatform and based on NetBeans.

ricklon

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:40:22 +0000

MPLAB X is based on Netbeans. If it would be possible to do a really minimal implementation in netbeans, I would interested in making that happen.

--Rick

avenue33

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:08:51 +0000

MPLAB X is based on Netbeans. If it would be possible to do a really minimal implementation in netbeans, I would interested in making that happen. --Rick

That sounds great news :)

I tried to install the Arduino plug-in but didn't mange to get it work properly.

I'm considering now Ino, which simulates the hidden dirty work done by the standard Arduino IDE of pre-processing libraries, building, linking, and uploading.

Although the standard IDE is fine and provides out-of-the-box, ready-to-use, instant-rewarding experience, I'm missing features for serious more development, such as: parameters tips, jump to definition, object hierarchy browser, refactoring among others. Also needed: a glimpse of debugging.

I can tell how painful developing the Serial_LCD library has been.

Furthermore, I don't want to deal with many different IDEs, each one with its own idiosyncrasies.

Actually, I don't understand why each micro-controller board manufacturer supplies its own IDE. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to supply a plug-in for a standard IDE :?:

So let's go for a NetBeans implementation.

Microchip / Diligent team, are you hearing :?: We fully support you :!:

Jacob Christ

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:50:36 +0000

Actually, I don't understand why each micro-controller board manufacturer supplies its own IDE. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to supply a plug-in for a standard IDE :?:

Yes, this is a great idea, but IMHO, java IDE suck (explicitive deleted). Don't get me wrong, netbeans or eclipse are both far superior to MPIDE. I think QT provides a better solution to the problem java tries to solve and QT Creator is an awesome IDE. So you see the dilemma, not one shoe fits all.

So let's go for a NetBeans implementation.

You should go for it. But if ever have time to work on it I'll be using QT.

Jacob

whoover

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:44:26 +0000

Yes, this is a great idea, but IMHO, java IDE suck (explicitive deleted). Don't get me wrong, netbeans or eclipse are both far superior to MPIDE. I think QT provides a better solution to the problem java tries to solve and QT Creator is an awesome IDE. So you see the dilemma, not one shoe fits all.

I've been using the eclipse IDE for years as well as other java and non-java IDEs like Visual Studio, Netbeans, IntelliJ, etc. I don't think any of them "suck". I can imagine that for an IDE to be as flexible as eclipse is across languages/platforms is quite a challenge. AFAIK, QT Designer has the luxury of only providing support for C++, whereas, eclipse/netbeans support multiple languages. Granted, that C++ is the primary concern for Arduino, it's still convenient for some of us that use multiple languages to have that kind of support within the same IDE ;)

Jacob Christ

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:59:47 +0000

QT Designer has the luxury of only providing support for C++

I could be mistaken but I think its pretty easy to change the regular expressions in QT Creator to support other languages.

Jacob

Mark

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:30:47 +0000

So let's go for a NetBeans implementation. Microchip / Diligent team, are you hearing :?: We fully support you :!:

We are going to be working on new stuff down the road. We have already discussed Netbeans and Eclipse. Of the 2, we will probably go towards Netbeans because of MPLAB-X

The issue at the moment is time.. We are working adding a bunch of stuff to Chipkit/arduino to enhance support of the pic32. Then we have to move forward to fully support Arduino 1.0, then we will be looking at the various options for a better Arduino style IDE, QT, Netbeans, Eclipse, (insert your favorite here), all are on the table.

Mark

avenue33

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:35:54 +0000

Mark,

Thank you for the update on the roadmap.

I see there are many exciting things for 2012!

Good luck to the team!

rasmadrak

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:56:32 +0000

A few suggestions:

  1. Add option to Auto-open serial console after upload. It's quite tedious to manually open the serial console after each upload when developing serial-heavy applications.

  2. It would be nice if the board and port setting was saved together with the PDE files instead of being global, and also changed automatically when a PDE is being focused/uploaded. I'm developing for several boards and it's tedious as well to manually remember to change the board and port etc. (Especially when they're named usbSerial0319312 etc..)

  3. It would be nice to be able to double click the error messages to get to the line-number that fails to compile. (In case you get a plugin going for other, more complete, developing softwares this might be redundant).

avenue33

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:34:16 +0000

I know I'm providing an answer to my own question. Anyway, I've been working on using Xcode for MPIDE and consolidating many different works.

Please find the third release of :arrow: mpideXcode.

Code-sense

  1. Go to Project > mpideXcode > Search Paths,
  2. Define HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS = $(ARDUINO_DIR)/** $(SKETCHBOOK_DIR)/Libraries/**
  3. Go to Project > Index > Build Phases > Compile Sources,
  4. Add all .h and .cpp files Bugs and To Do • Closer integration of the serial console • Integrate help from Arduino .html files

Enjoy :)

avenue33

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:06:37 +0000

Please find a project and a template for Xcode at this :arrow: thread.

Xcode inner structure is rather secretive, so any help is welcomed!

ahnise

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 17:43:55 +0000

A MPLAB X integration would probably be the best approach. The new version is based on net beans and you would be able to source level debug the code.

There was mention of a document which shows how to do this (at least to some extent) which is posted elsewhere on this site. Unfortunately the download link is broken. Any alternative way to get this file ?

KeithV

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 20:00:08 +0000

Here are my class notes on how to debug/edit sketches with MPLAB-X

KeithV

avenue33

Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:56:41 +0000

Here are my class notes on how to debug/edit sketches with MPLAB-X KeithV

Thanks for the tutorial. Any project to release the nobootloader.ld for chipKIT PGM with WiFire WF32 DP32?

zefron

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 07:13:31 +0000

thanks you very much for the useful data.....