Is it possible to download the 2014 Update Suite for Mac without downloading Bootcamp? They have NetBeans for Mac but the NI site only has a .exe file and a .zip file. I assume the .zip file has the Windows download as well.
You can update the FRC plugins using NetBeans on a Mac.
Tools->Plugins->Updates->Check for Updates
I am not looking to update the plugins. I am looking to download the update suite, which includes, among other things, the Driver Station and the cRIO imaging tool.
The driver station and cRIO imaging tools unfortunately do not work on the Mac OS. As a student at an all-Mac school, we have tried basically everything to get the FRC software to work, but with no luck. You either need to dual-boot Windows on your computer with Bootcamp or parallels, or get a separate Windows programming/driving machine.
Oops… Yeah, Parallels or Bootcamp and Windows for you.
Well, at least you can code the robot native on the Mac using NetBeans and Java. And deploy code from NetBeans and run the SmartDashboard.
Will this mean I have to download the Windows version of NetBeans as well?
No, you do not need to use the windows version of Netbeans, you can use the OS X version, with the FRC plugins. Many of Brad Miller’s FRC Java tutorial videos are done natively on OS X.
So how would I then download the code from NetBeans to the cRIO? Would I still just run the program in NetBeans?
Let’s see… this ‘2014 Update Suite’ that you speak of must be the National Instruments Update that only runs in Windows (via Parallels or Bootcamp on Mac) and will provide the Driver Station and the cRIO Imaging Tool. None of that is related to NetBeans.
NetBeans is the Java IDE that you can run native on your Mac. You can install (and update) the FRC Plugins for NetBeans which let you write and deploy robot code.
Yes, the Netbeans plugins work just fine on Linux and MacOSX. Just press the run button and it downloads and reboots the cRIO.