Arduino Template Express – Creating a Sketch

In this post we’ll go over creating a sketch with Arduino Template Express.  I assume you have followed the instructions of how to install ATE from my previous post.  Launch Atmel Studio and select File\New\Project or Ctrl-Shift-N.

atmel-new-project

Select Arduino Sketch Wizard, give it a proper name and location and hit OK.  The wizard will be launched with the list of development boards you have configured during installation  or after installation by modifying the boards.xml file.

ate-wizard

I will use the Uno board for this example.  Pick an appropriate board from your setup and hit OK.  Atmel Studio will render a new project with the following layout.

ate-solution-explorer

This sketch flashes the on board LED and sends a running counter via the serial port.  Compile the sketch and  take a look at the output window.

ate-output

The sketch is compiled and as part of the compilation the template keeps track of how many successful and failed compilations have taken place.  It also keeps track of how many successful/failed deployments occur.  Let’s deploy this puppy.  Select Tool\Deploy or press deploy in the tool bar if you have it configured.  The output window should display the outcome of the deployment.  If you launch a terminal window and connect it to your development board data port, you will see a running counter every time the LED flashes.

Additional Goodies Included Provided by ATE

  • Take a look at Utility\BuildDate.cpp.  This file gets rebuilt every time the sketch is compiled.  It generates the time stamp of the last build and you can store it in ram, EEMEM or PROGMEM.  You can optionally use this information by calling GetBuildDate().
  • Utility\BuildInfo.cpp has ShowBuildInfo() to output build information to the Serial port.
  • Utility\BuildNumber.cpp keeps track of how many successful deployments has been made.  You can optionally use this information to keep track of your deployments.

That’s all for now.  In my next post we will go over creating libraries with ATE.

Arduino Template Express – Installation

The Arduino ecosystem consist of an IDE, development boards, development libraries and a vibrant and engaging community involved in the support and expansion of all of the components that make the ecosystem.  I acknowledge the pedagogical benefits of the Arduino IDE but if you are already used to Atmel Studio, the Arduino IDE feels like developing with training wheels.  The Arduino Template Express (ATE) enables Atmel Studio to create sketches using Arduino libraries and development boards.  AVR developers can take the best of the Arduino and continue using Atmel Studio and all the benefits it provides.  This post will walk you through the installation of ATE.

Arduino Template Express Configuration

In order to install ATE you must have already installed Atmel Studio 6.1 and Arduino 1.0.4 or higher.  Both of these programs must be installed and running successfully.  Download ATE from the Arduino Template Express site at CodePlex.  Before running setup make sure you close all instances of Atmel Studio that may be running, run atesetup.exe and agree to let the program run with administrative rights.  The following screens will guide you to the setup process.  As of the writing of this post version 1.0.2 (Beta 3) is available for download.

ate-screen1

Press Next to get to the next screen

ate-screen2

Press “I Agree” to accept the license and move to the next screen.

ate-screen3

The atesetup.exe program will install pre-compiled Arduino libraries, project templates and a wizard to drive the initial configuration of sketches.  Click Next to continue.

ate-screen4

This screen let’s you select the directories where Atmel Studio accepts new templates and the location where you want to store the application.  It is advisable to install it in your documents\Arduino Template Express folder.  The installer will try to pre-populate the directories for you.  Click Next to continue

ate-screen5

The following screen will attempt selects the location of AVRDUDE and its configuration file also the path for atprogram.exe distributed with Atmel Studio.  Note that as of Atmel Studio 6.1 the path of atprogram.exe has changes and now it is under the atbackend directory.  The installer will try to find these programs for you, but if does not, you will need to provide their paths before continuing.  Press Next to continue.

ate-screen6

The Board Selection screen allows you to select up to 8 boards you already own.  Do not worry, if you have more than 8 boards.  After the installation is completed you can add as many boards as you want to the boards.xml file.  In my case I have 3 development boards, an Uno, Mega2560 and Leonardo.  Note the Leonardo board requires two different ports, one for data and the other for programming.  Once you have defined all your boards, press Next to continue.

ate-screen7

The External Tool configuration configures the option to deploy sketches from within Atmel Studio. The option is configured in the Tools menu and it is recommended that you configure the Deploy option as part of one of the tool bars in order to enable one click deployment.  Your screen may be a little different depending on the number of external tools you may have already installed in Atmel Studio.  Click Next to continue.

ate-screen8

The About to Install screen gives you a list of what is going to be installed.  Click Install to continue and after a little while the end of the installation screen will show giving you the option to launch the readme file or go to the web site to get additional information.  I suggest you take a quick look at the readme file.

ate-screen9

That’s all.  Hit close and the installation is completed.  If you forget where is the program installed, open a command window and type set | find “ATE_HOME” to find the path where the ATE was installed.  Next post I will walk you through the generation of a sketch that blinks the on board LED and uses the serial port.