Thanks for the kind words on the Toggle Tutorial! I've been incented enough for now. The main reason I stopped was that I was asking questions about a moving target and the guys moving the target were unable to answer. Now that thing have settled down, I'd be happy to resume my work (I even have a new IDE to work in).
It has been my pleasure Steve. The absolute least i could do given the awesome effort that is PropGCC and your GUI. It really has got me excited to get into code again. That coupled with MIT trialling online courses (even for us Aussies!) I am hoping to actually be able to contribute to this forum in 6 months time or so Hopefully i will be able to get the webcam working so you can watch the LED's at the same time Google+ is an awesome way to fault find with this stuff as we found out.
+1 mindrobots. The more i can get my hands on the better. At the moment C is making me chase my tails trying to understand how everything links and works together.
Thanks again Steve for taking the time for a problem that may well just be me. If it is just me and a linux version is in the pipeline then the problem will just disappear
1GB Netbook running Win7 - less than stellar performance platform.
The system had a nice little IDE called x-basic already installed - I don't know if that disqualifies it as a virgin.
Install worked without any issues.
path was updated to include c:\propgcc\bin - nothing else
SIDE is very slow to find port but it does find it.
Using hello.c on C3 and Quickstart (with resistor)
Compiles quickly and goes to 50% complete - Building with propeller-elf-gcc.exe done. Loading...
Loader executes and appears to hang.(Sometimes, windows was marking the program as "Not Responding")
After a while, it appears to time-out and a dialog appears with "C:/bin/propeller-load.exe Error waiting for program to finish." <OK>
This happens with Run, Burn EEPROM and Debug.
Running the loader command as generated by the IDE in a command shell does eventually load the Prop and run the program. The IDE may just timeout too soon - based on how slow a 1GB Netbook is with Windows 7, I wouldn't be surprised.
It does call propgcc correctly and generates a viable a.out and creates a well formed call to the loader. There is a time-out issue on my netbook. The propgcc environment it sets up appears to be functional.
x-basic, S2 GUI, Propeller tool all do work on the netbook with these prop boards. The propgcc install obviously does work since SIDE calls it and it generates and loads.
SIDE does seem to load and initialize slowly on the Netbook compared to other programs (like x-basic).
In a couple days I should have a clean Win 7 install on a quad core desktop to play with when my recovery disks show up......don't ask....
I'm going to load SIDE on my i7 8gb laptop and see how it runs with a little more horsepower behind it.
Let me know if there's anything else you want me to try.
So far, I like it a lot - as I mentioned, Eclipse is too much for what I do.
Oh, one more thing......can it be ported to Linux and OS X?? or is it forever locked in the Windows world?
I have the same issue running Windows 7 on a i7 with 6GB. Tried quickstart and Spin Stamp with same results.
I did notice a few things:
When I used the drop-down selection for the board type (selected "DEMOBOARD") and had exited the program, when I started it back up it reset to "ASC." Would there be a way to set this as part of the properties?
I noticed when it builds it reports back how many "K bytes" are part of the build, which is nice, however (and maybe I am being nit-picky) but it might be beneficial to show how many actual bytes (or longs) of compiled code were generated.
There is an option to "set properties" in the IDE, and there is a "properties" action. It appears that only "properties" actually goes to the properties section. Is the "set properties" some sort of placeholder for other functionality?
[Edit:] One other thing that might be handy is a "show line numbers" option in the code editing pane. Not absolutely necessary, however it is always nice to have in an IDE.
[Edit:]It looks like some of the "colorizing" of the content needs adjusting. It looks like it is interpreting code that uses greater than/less than the same as it does a string literal (as part of an include directive?). It is also treating code that are within quotes (even in a comment) the same. See attached image.
Compiles quickly and goes to 50% complete - Building with propeller-elf-gcc.exe done. Loading...
Loader executes and appears to hang.(Sometimes, windows was marking the program as "Not Responding")
After a while, it appears to time-out and a dialog appears with "C:/bin/propeller-load.exe Error waiting for program to finish." <OK>
This happens with Run, Burn EEPROM and Debug.
Running the loader command as generated by the IDE in a command shell does eventually load the Prop and run the program. The IDE may just timeout too soon - based on how slow a 1GB Netbook is with Windows 7, I wouldn't be surprised.
I have the same issue (I have a 1.8 GHz Core Duo with 4GB RAM). When compiling something the size of "pong" this does not seem to be an issue for me at least.
1) Good: toggle_pasm and toggle-gas demos work as expected (you probably already tested these). SIDE was able to find the assemblers and link and load all the parts it created. I've been creating little projects, testing the various demos and playing with various pieces of code. No surprises that can;t be traced back to pilot error.
2) Bad: A request/consideration. Can the port reset and terminal display/hide functions be moved to separate buttons? At times, I think it might be nice to be able to hide/display the terminal without resetting and also be able to reset without toggling the terminal. If I close the terminal window, I may want to get it back without resetting the Prop. (I may have just missed a way to do this)
3) Ugly #1: If I click on a menu (File, Edit, Project, Debug, Help) , the outline box of the drop down area appears but it has no contents (it's transparent), when I move the mouse cursor to another menu item, the proper contents for that item appear in the proper boundary box, when I move back to my original menu selection, it's contents then appear in the proper boundary box. I've noticed this both in the top menu as well as the right-click menu in the .side panel. I was seeing this a lot but now I'm having trouble reproducing it. This kind of leads me to Ugly #2
4) Ugly #2; Does QT/C++ have garbage collection issues? It seems like at times, the IDE stalls for no apparent reason, takes a big breath and then runs fine again. Sometimes you will think that the mouse events are out of sync with the display refresh and then everything is fine. I was building a project and did a right-click on the main file to add a second file. The context dialog came up empty a couple of times and then I finally got "add file" and "delete file" displayed. I chose "add", the file dialog popped up, I selected my file, hit "open" and went back to the new file wasn't listed in the .side panel. I right clicked again a couple times until the "add/delete" finally displayed inside the box and all of a sudden, the new file showed up in the .side panel after I clicked "add". Canceled out of the file dialog and all was well. Now it's working fine. Of course, lots of small developers like Microsoft and Mozilla have issues with stalls at times, too.......
5) Ugly #3: At one point, it just hang. CPU usage on my laptop went to 25% and guess which process was using 25%? I haven't been able to recreate this problem.
None of this is a show stopper. I'm still more productive with SIDE than with Notepad++ and a command shell.
I'm going to start up a again on the Toggle Tutorials using SIDE as my IDE.
It's a GREAT "Simple" button for PropGCC noobs like me.
5) Ugly #3: At one point, it just hang. CPU usage on my laptop went to 25% and guess which process was using 25%? I haven't been able to recreate this problem.
I had this happen when using the "run" functionality, and it seemed to hang during the serial port communication. I ended up having to restart my computer in order to communicate with the COM port.
Install worked without any issues.
path was updated to include c:\propgcc\bin - nothing else
SIDE is very slow to find port but it does find it.
Using hello.c on C3 and Quickstart (with resistor)
Compiles quickly and goes to 50% complete - Building with propeller-elf-gcc.exe done. Loading...
Loader executes and appears to hang.(Sometimes, windows was marking the program as "Not Responding")
After a while, it appears to time-out and a dialog appears with "C:/bin/propeller-load.exe Error waiting for program to finish." <OK>
This happens with Run, Burn EEPROM and Debug.
Running the loader command as generated by the IDE in a command shell does eventually load the Prop and run the program.
OK, I re-imaged my desktop so I could do a completely virgin install (KIDDING! - I re-imaged for an unrelated issue.)
The install went fine but I see the same scenario with hello.c as in my self-quote above.
The PROPGCC environment itself is viable. Propeller-load can talk to the C3 and loads it fine when the SIDE generated command line is fed to a command shell. SIDE just won't load the C3 for any amount of love or money!
The desktop is a quad core AMD with 4GB of memory and Windows 7 Home Premium. Freshly installed. The only thing I did was uninstall all the garbage the OEM put on there, install the FTDI drivers from the Parallax site and then install SIDE.
I'm going to leave this machine as it is so I have a clean test platform.
I finally got around to installing SimpleIDE to my XP, and 7 machines, I have experienced some of the problems described already. I have also experienced a problem with the New File procedure, at one point it created a new tab, but there was no cursor displayed, so it would not take any keypress. Also, on a new file save I think it should ask where you want to save it to, then after that it could save automatically.
Since I plan on getting back to doing some work on the uSD program, will you be adding multiple file compile? The existing 'Project' choice does not seem like it does any multiple file compiles.
So far it looks like SimpleIDE has some very good potential for programmers like myself. Where do you find the time?
I finally got around to installing SimpleIDE to my XP, and 7 machines, I have experienced some of the problems described already. I have also experienced a problem with the New File procedure, at one point it created a new tab, but there was no cursor displayed, so it would not take any keypress. Also, on a new file save I think it should ask where you want to save it to, then after that it could save automatically.
Just wanted to let you know the IDE loader stall is fixed, but the compile can cause trouble on a slow machine. There are other things left to do before I make another test package.
Ken asked me to set the progress bar back to 0 when finished loading, etc.... I decided the progress bar should be visible only when active. So, now the progress bar only appears on a build, run, or debug command. The progress bar gives real loader progress now.
There is an option to "set properties" in the IDE, and there is a "properties" action. It appears that only "properties" actually goes to the properties section. Is the "set properties" some sort of placeholder for other functionality?
I'm having a hard time finding the "set properties" you've mentioned. Maybe it was "set project" ? Please clarify.
[Edit:] One other thing that might be handy is a "show line numbers" option in the code editing pane. Not absolutely necessary, however it is always nice to have in an IDE.
Rsadeika also asked about this. It will take some time to make this happen and I can't guarantee it before March.
I have also experienced a problem with the New File procedure, at one point it created a new tab, but there was no cursor displayed, so it would not take any keypress.
I tried reproducing this. I think the problem is that you should click on the window before typing.
I'm having a hard time finding the "set properties" you've mentioned. Maybe it was "set project" ? Please clarify.
Yes, "Set Project" -- I must have had "properties" on the brain It exists both in "Project...Set Project - F4" and as an icon on one of the strips (near the "Properties") icon that looks like a wrench.
It probably does/will serve a purpose in the future (??) although right now it does not appear to do anything.
Yes, "Set Project" -- I must have had "properties" on the brain It exists both in "Project...Set Project - F4" and as an icon on one of the strips (near the "Properties") icon that looks like a wrench.
It probably does/will serve a purpose in the future (??) although right now it does not appear to do anything.
Actually, yes, "Set Project" does serve a purpose.
Have you thought about making that action "New Project" (next to the "New" action on the menu/strip)? That might be a little more intuitive way of creating a project. "Set Project File" / "Set Project" made me think that it had something to do with setting project properties (in a way it is I suppose...If you perceive the "compiler settings" as "project settings"). Just a suggestion.
Have you thought about making that action "New Project" (next to the "New" action on the menu/strip)?
Yes, I thought it might be a little obscure. I guess I've been hesitant because if I introduce "New Project" then I need to have maybe "Save Project", "Save As Project", and "Open Project" ... actually "Open Project" would be useful so people don't have to use "Open" and search for the .side file.
I think at this point, the best thing to do would be just to add New Project and Open Project. Having New Project would allow the user to specify a folder too .... I'll add this as an enhancement issue with a lower priority.
Thanks for your efforts on this, Steve; it's really nice. Being a JonnyMac-come-lately, I seem to have benefited from the "gotchas" caught by others and things ran very smoothly the first time through. Of course, living in Hollywood as I do, I had to turn the blinker program into a Larsen scanner!
I can understand C code written by others, but am not yet up to speed on the nuances used by most when writing it. With this I can start experimenting and learning. Again, thanks!
This version mainly fixes the loader hang that everyone has seen. Here is the fixed issue list.
1
Defect
IDE stalls while loader running. Performance
5
Enhanc
User requests number of bytes for image size.
6
Defect
Compiler properties dialog title wrong
8
Defect
Some syntax highlighting
12
Defect
"New" then "Save" file doesn't work.
Please verify these issues are fixed so I can close them.
I'm still having trouble with the serial port close eating CPU.
If you see the CPU usage jump just click the connect button twice.
This is a big problem, and I'm considering a different approach to fix it.
@JonnyMac, Glad to see the IDE is helpful. I'm anxious to help with any questions.
I tried your program and had trouble too. I had removed error reporting for some reason.
Here's a new SimpleIDE.exe to put in your C:\Program Files\SimpleIDE\bin folder.
Let me know how it works out.
Comments
+1 mindrobots. The more i can get my hands on the better. At the moment C is making me chase my tails trying to understand how everything links and works together.
Thanks again Steve for taking the time for a problem that may well just be me. If it is just me and a linux version is in the pipeline then the problem will just disappear
I clicked on the "Print" button and nothing happened!!
Some of us dinosaurs still like to print out a listing every once in a while!
You found it?
It is the tool we need to try GCC with the Propeller.
I often have problems with Eclipse and better use such simple and easy tools.
Wrote a macro for dira , ina, outa and this short program worked first time !
[code]
#include <propeller.h>
#include "pins.h"
int main()
{
dirahigh(1);
for(;;)
{
outahigh(1);
waitcnt(CLKFREQ/5 + CNT);
outalow(1);
waitcnt(CLKFREQ/5+ CNT);
}
return 0;
}
[code]
I have the same issue running Windows 7 on a i7 with 6GB. Tried quickstart and Spin Stamp with same results.
Thanks for all your work!
Tony
Very nice IDE!
I did notice a few things:
When I used the drop-down selection for the board type (selected "DEMOBOARD") and had exited the program, when I started it back up it reset to "ASC." Would there be a way to set this as part of the properties?
I noticed when it builds it reports back how many "K bytes" are part of the build, which is nice, however (and maybe I am being nit-picky) but it might be beneficial to show how many actual bytes (or longs) of compiled code were generated.
There is an option to "set properties" in the IDE, and there is a "properties" action. It appears that only "properties" actually goes to the properties section. Is the "set properties" some sort of placeholder for other functionality?
[Edit:] One other thing that might be handy is a "show line numbers" option in the code editing pane. Not absolutely necessary, however it is always nice to have in an IDE.
[Edit:]It looks like some of the "colorizing" of the content needs adjusting. It looks like it is interpreting code that uses greater than/less than the same as it does a string literal (as part of an include directive?). It is also treating code that are within quotes (even in a comment) the same. See attached image.
--trodoss
I'll make a list of items to address on the first post soon.
But first ... I've started the Linux port this morning and want to finish that.
Thanks,
--Steve
1) Good: toggle_pasm and toggle-gas demos work as expected (you probably already tested these). SIDE was able to find the assemblers and link and load all the parts it created. I've been creating little projects, testing the various demos and playing with various pieces of code. No surprises that can;t be traced back to pilot error.
2) Bad: A request/consideration. Can the port reset and terminal display/hide functions be moved to separate buttons? At times, I think it might be nice to be able to hide/display the terminal without resetting and also be able to reset without toggling the terminal. If I close the terminal window, I may want to get it back without resetting the Prop. (I may have just missed a way to do this)
3) Ugly #1: If I click on a menu (File, Edit, Project, Debug, Help) , the outline box of the drop down area appears but it has no contents (it's transparent), when I move the mouse cursor to another menu item, the proper contents for that item appear in the proper boundary box, when I move back to my original menu selection, it's contents then appear in the proper boundary box. I've noticed this both in the top menu as well as the right-click menu in the .side panel. I was seeing this a lot but now I'm having trouble reproducing it. This kind of leads me to Ugly #2
4) Ugly #2; Does QT/C++ have garbage collection issues? It seems like at times, the IDE stalls for no apparent reason, takes a big breath and then runs fine again. Sometimes you will think that the mouse events are out of sync with the display refresh and then everything is fine. I was building a project and did a right-click on the main file to add a second file. The context dialog came up empty a couple of times and then I finally got "add file" and "delete file" displayed. I chose "add", the file dialog popped up, I selected my file, hit "open" and went back to the new file wasn't listed in the .side panel. I right clicked again a couple times until the "add/delete" finally displayed inside the box and all of a sudden, the new file showed up in the .side panel after I clicked "add". Canceled out of the file dialog and all was well. Now it's working fine. Of course, lots of small developers like Microsoft and Mozilla have issues with stalls at times, too.......
5) Ugly #3: At one point, it just hang. CPU usage on my laptop went to 25% and guess which process was using 25%? I haven't been able to recreate this problem.
None of this is a show stopper. I'm still more productive with SIDE than with Notepad++ and a command shell.
I'm going to start up a again on the Toggle Tutorials using SIDE as my IDE.
It's a GREAT "Simple" button for PropGCC noobs like me.
OK, I re-imaged my desktop so I could do a completely virgin install (KIDDING! - I re-imaged for an unrelated issue.)
The install went fine but I see the same scenario with hello.c as in my self-quote above.
The PROPGCC environment itself is viable. Propeller-load can talk to the C3 and loads it fine when the SIDE generated command line is fed to a command shell. SIDE just won't load the C3 for any amount of love or money!
The desktop is a quad core AMD with 4GB of memory and Windows 7 Home Premium. Freshly installed. The only thing I did was uninstall all the garbage the OEM put on there, install the FTDI drivers from the Parallax site and then install SIDE.
I'm going to leave this machine as it is so I have a clean test platform.
Eagerly anticipating your AH-HA moment!
I'm making progress on the hang while loading, etc.... CPU usage is low and I can freely interact with the IDE.
The other issues are noted, and will get attention too.
Thanks again for the feedback.
--Steve
Since I plan on getting back to doing some work on the uSD program, will you be adding multiple file compile? The existing 'Project' choice does not seem like it does any multiple file compiles.
So far it looks like SimpleIDE has some very good potential for programmers like myself. Where do you find the time?
Ray
Actually it does support multiple file compile. You have to right click on a project file name to get the Add/Delete menu, then add the file.
That is a Wiki markup version of the _SimpleIDE_UserGuide_.txt in the zip package.
You can make comments in the Wiki if you like.
Ken asked me to set the progress bar back to 0 when finished loading, etc.... I decided the progress bar should be visible only when active. So, now the progress bar only appears on a build, run, or debug command. The progress bar gives real loader progress now.
Thanks,
--Steve
Ray
Today I plan to make a new release. The main bug fix is the loader problem.
A list of bugs mentioned by you all is here: http://code.google.com/p/propside/issues/list
I'm having a hard time finding the "set properties" you've mentioned. Maybe it was "set project" ? Please clarify.
Rsadeika also asked about this. It will take some time to make this happen and I can't guarantee it before March.
I tried reproducing this. I think the problem is that you should click on the window before typing.
I noticed that just "save" after "new" does not ask ask for the filename and the file appears to be lost. For now use "save as". Thanks.
It probably does/will serve a purpose in the future (??) although right now it does not appear to do anything.
Actually, yes, "Set Project" does serve a purpose.
Let's say you want a new project. How do you make one? Look here for the answer.
Have you thought about making that action "New Project" (next to the "New" action on the menu/strip)? That might be a little more intuitive way of creating a project. "Set Project File" / "Set Project" made me think that it had something to do with setting project properties (in a way it is I suppose...If you perceive the "compiler settings" as "project settings"). Just a suggestion.
I think at this point, the best thing to do would be just to add New Project and Open Project. Having New Project would allow the user to specify a folder too .... I'll add this as an enhancement issue with a lower priority.
Thanks,
--Steve
#include <propeller.h> #define LSB 16 int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { int idx; DIRA = 0xff << LSB; for(;;) { for(idx = 0; idx < 7; idx++) { OUTA = 1 << (idx + LSB); waitcnt((CLKFREQ >> 3) + CNT); } for(idx = 7; idx > 0; idx--) { OUTA = 1 << (idx + LSB); waitcnt((CLKFREQ >> 3) + CNT); } } return 0; }I can understand C code written by others, but am not yet up to speed on the nuances used by most when writing it. With this I can start experimenting and learning. Again, thanks!
Version 0_3_3 of SimpleIDE is now posted: http://code.google.com/p/propside/downloads/list
Please uninstall the old program before installing this one. The name was changed by request.
This version mainly fixes the loader hang that everyone has seen. Here is the fixed issue list.
1
Defect
IDE stalls while loader running. Performance
5
Enhanc
User requests number of bytes for image size.
6
Defect
Compiler properties dialog title wrong
8
Defect
Some syntax highlighting
12
Defect
"New" then "Save" file doesn't work.
Please verify these issues are fixed so I can close them.
I'm still having trouble with the serial port close eating CPU.
If you see the CPU usage jump just click the connect button twice.
This is a big problem, and I'm considering a different approach to fix it.
@JonnyMac, Glad to see the IDE is helpful. I'm anxious to help with any questions.
Thanks,
--Steve
Project Directory: C:/Documents and Settings/Ray/My Documents/MyProgs/CC++/PropUI/
propeller-elf-gcc.exe -o a.out -Os -mcog -m32bit-doubles -fno-exceptions PropUI.c -s
C:/propgcc/bin/propeller-load.exe -b C3 -p COM5 -I C:/propgcc/propeller-load/ C:/Documents and Settings/Ray/My Documents/MyProgs/CC++/PropUI/a.out -rerror: failed to open 'C:/Documents and Settings/Ray/My Documents/MyProgs/CC++/PropUI/a.out'
Propeller Version 1 on COM5
error: load failed
Ray
/* * PropUI.c */ #include <stdio.h> #include <propeller.h> #include "misc.h" int main() { return 0; }Here's a new SimpleIDE.exe to put in your C:\Program Files\SimpleIDE\bin folder.
Let me know how it works out.
Thanks,
--Steve