SmartDashboard issues.

[Hypnotoad]

Hello. This is my first time using java. I got most things working but am having issues with the dashboard. When I start up the smartDashboard, the connection indicator stays red. Are there any special objects that need to be created for it to work? Does it even work in iterative robot? or does it have to be in commandBasedJava? This is causing large problems for me as I need this to work for debugging the code. I give thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with this.

[joelg236]

I don't have a solution for you, but I know that we used the indicator last year and sometimes it worked well, while sometimes not working at all. I'm not entirely sure the code behind it, but you could probably find out in the source code.

[dheerm]

It works fine on our robot. Import the smart dashboard class and make sure you initialize it via getInstance() , its a static class

[Hypnotoad]

getInstance() doesn't exist for SmartDashboard.

[otherguy]

My guess is you don't have your team number set up correctly, or the laptop which is running smartDashboard doesn't have it's network settings configured properly.

Lucky for you the documentation has gone through a significant overhaul recently. You should read through the guides here: http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/3120/m/7932 particularly getting started (http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/3120/m/7932/l/90078-getting-started-with-the-smartdashboard)

Keep in mind that the new documentation is meant for the 2013 version of smartdashboard, although it will likely be good enough to get you going with last years version. If it doesn't match up for some reason, I made a quick and dirty setup guide (http://team2168.org/index.php/resources/programming/223-using-smartdashboard) after I figured out how to get it up and running last year.

[Hypnotoad]

Hmm. Great guide you sent me. I will see if I can get it working using the new dashboard that comes with the driver station. In my last reply though, I meant that when I was coding in netbeans, getInstance wasn't one of the options when selecting the method to call.

I have a completely new question now though: what is live window and is it necessarry to do anything with it or network tables to get things working?

[dheerm]

getInstance() doesn't exist for SmartDashboard.

Sorry, messed that up lol. Just make sure you import SmartDashboard and use the guide that the previous user posted. :)

[Hypnotoad]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY! I updated the driverstation to the 2013 version and everything worked! No clue what it was but it works now. Now for a new question that I will post in a new thread: how to display images?