Need help with a Select and Enter type menu

ihmech

I have been working on building a shop tool for use at my workplace.· I have been tinkering with electronics for the past 15yrs, but I am new to the Basic Stamp and programing, I'm teaching myself and trying to develop a tool at the same time.· My biggest problem is that I have not been able to create a simple menu.· I want a menu that I can display on an LCD, but I can't get the menu part down.· The menu I want works like this:· "Press select to choose machine"· Pressing the·select button will change the menu between "Machine_A and Machine_B" and pressing enter for "Machine_A or B will·start the program and use preset values for the machine selected.· I also need to be able to add more than two options in the future for new machine models.· Any help would greatly be appriciated.· Thanks!

Post Edited (ihmech) : 5/27/2009 2:01:45 AM GMT

rixter

ihmech,

What I did was to have a couple of push buttons to the right side of a 4x20 LCD and I displayed on the LCD the menu choices with an arrow pointing to the button to press. Here is an example:

Run Program One --->
Run Program Two --->
Run Program Three -->
Run Program Four -->

The code in your program will loop through and check for the pressing of any of these buttons and branch to the appropriate code in your program (or slot in your BS2 if so equipped). In your case, you may need a hierarchy of menu screens. So for example pressing button one would jump to code that displays another menu on the LCD that applies to Machine A in your case. Push buttons can of course be "re-used" in the sense that the top button is selecting a machine in the first level of the menu system and may be used to turn that machine on in menu level two.

Scanning for pressing of buttons is not difficult and I can provide examples of what I did there if you want.

I hope this helps.

Rick

ihmech

Any help with code would be great! I have been trying to use debouncing multiple inputs with no luck. I kept having trouble with the BS2 reading the two pushbuttons and that is why I was trying to use the debouncing code example. Thank you!

rixter

You can study the BUTTON command to understand more about debouncing. There is also info there on wiring a switch. I use the pulldown method where downstate produces a 1. I don't use the BUTTON command for my purposes because it wasn't required and it takes up some overhead. The loop that checks for the pressing of a button for a menu is going to be tight and you are going to jump to program code the instant it senses a pressing of a button. There shouldn't be any need to check for duration of the press. If your project requires you to monitor a button press while other processes are occurring, that is a different story. But you should be ok to work with something simpler for a menu. In this example below I have two pushbutton switches attached to pins 1 and 2 on the Stamp. The code loops back and forth between checking for a press on either button. As long as no button is pressed, the loop continues infinitely. Once a button is pressed, it branches to the appropriate code segment in your program and returns to the menu at the end.

Rick

---

:MENU

; display menu to the LCD here...

menubutton1: ' top button
IF IN1=0 THEN GOTO menubutton2
GOTO CODESEG1 ; goto part of program you want to run when button 1 is pressed

menubutton2: ' bottom button
IF IN2=0 THEN GOTO menubutton1
GOTO CODESEG2 ; goto part of program you want to run when button 2 is pressed

:CODESEG1
...
...
GOTO MENU

:CODESEG2
...
...
GOTO MENU

sam_sam_sam

Try this little Routine and see if this will work for you

chg············ PIN···· 1·············· 'This is your input pin

cntr··········· VAR···· BYTE


············ '·One routine is IN1 = 1 and the other routine is for IN1 = 0


············ ·' I have use this little Routine a few time when go to a different· routine using a switch

Do

cntr = cntr + 1 * Chg
IF (cntr = 5) THEN···· ·' Or ·EXIT··· cntr = How Long you want to hold the button before it gose to what ever routine you want it to go to
DEBUG· ? Chg··, CR, ?·cntr····················· ' one nice thing about this routine is if your input dose not stay ethier a 1 or 0 for the hole count
·ENDIF········································ ' The Cntr counter gose back to " 0 "

cntr = cntr + 1 * (1 - Chg)
··· IF (cntr = 5) THEN

DEBUG· ? Chg, CR, ?Cntr
ENDIF


LOOP

I hope this helps

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··Thanks for any··that you may have and all of your time finding them

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Sam

ihmech

So far I have a menu made up that works very well and I am quite pleased with it. ·I'm still working some small bugs out of it though.· I'm·pretty stuborn and like to figure thinks out for my self...can't learn unless you fail...If I keep having trouble, I will post the code I have wrote so far for the menu.· Thank you all for your help!·

sam_sam_sam

ihmech

·I'm still working some small bugs out of it though. I'm·pretty stuborn and like to figure thinks out for my self...can't learn unless you fail.·<<<..........>>>> I know what you mean

When you have all of the bug work out of you code routines
Would you Please Post your Project in the Completed Project

Also if you need any help with your code feel free to ask


Thank You

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··Thanks for any··that you may have and all of your time finding them

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Sam

Post Edited (sam_sam_sam) : 5/28/2009 10:58:50 PM GMT

ihmech

I finally had time to sit down and work on my menu. I just got two small bugs worked out with the program and it works great! Thanks everyone for all of your help!