MPLAB alternatives?

Technical Programming
1

MPLAB is a great IDE, except for it’s text editor. It doesn’t even indent for you, which is big pain in the butt. Being a Mac OS X guy, what alternative text editors (or IDEs) could be used?

HI-TIDE seems like a really nice IDE, but can it be used with mcc18 compiler? What are other people out there using?

2

Eclipse. Start by looking here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1729
If you search around these forums, you should find all of the information you need to get it running.
If you’re trying to use your mac to do all of your programming, you’ll have to figure out how to get the C18 compiler to run on OSX. People have done it on Linux, but I don’t know about mac.

3

I personally use Notepad++ to write all my scripts and then I go into mplab just for compiling (press F10), even though I know how to run MCC18 out of a batch file.

Notepad++ supports about 30-ish different languages and does highlighting and colorizing of text depending on the file extension. It supports multiple documents open in the same window, split views on the same or different files at the same time, and collapsing of structures (e.g. any statement inside {'s can be collapsed much like a tree view). It also has a function browser built in (shows all the functions in the file), and can run an executable of your choice off the F5 key.

4

I like to use Vim in combination with make. For our version control we use Git.

All set up on Windows, make and git from Cygwin and the Windows version of vim.

I’ve heard reports of the compiler working under Wine. The OS X port should also be able to handle it.

5

MPLAB 8.00 does auto-indent and has code folding and tabbed documents…

It’s still no Eclipse as far as ease of use, but it has come a long way.

6

I use the free Bloodshed Dev C++ editor for editing my code. The indentions are decent and the color coding is better in my oppinion. It’s a Win32 complier so I still have to go through MPLAB to compile. I believe there is a Dev C++ for Mac. Dev C++ also changes the icons of the code files so it’s a lot easier to find what your looking for without file extentions.

7

Thanks for the suggestions. Eclipse or Visual Studio seems like the way to go.

8

MPLAB 7.20 (the one that comes on the CBOT CD) has several customizable editor options available after selecting an editor window (it’s greyed out otherwise), among them “Auto Indent”. By default it is turned off. Other useful options which can be turned on include “Line Numbers” and “Use Tabbed Window”.

9

we use codeblocks its has a lot if nice plugins
but its a pain to set up the compiler

10

Personally, I use Eclipse for everything… I’d say it has some of the most convenient features around, including an auto-formatter, refactorer, definition/declaration finders, and a myriad of debugging tools. However, the project and builders are a pain to set up, but if you’re willing to invest the time, it’s worth it.

11

hi psy_wombats

I am looking for your solution, which is to use Eclipse for everything… instead of MPLAB

I Have installed eclipse + CDT so far, and got lost trying to continue with GNU MAKR utilization

Do you have a small guideline how to proceed wiht the rest, especially on the area of the GNU MAKE and how to configure the directories in order to utilize the MAKE.

ALso, may you have an example of a PIF24FJ project, using THE mplab c30 C0MPILER, showing make file and directories configuration

thanks in advance

juan abba

12

@whitetiger0990: Why use cygwin instead of MSYS?

@juan abba: I did this once. My makefile looks like this:

rfrc : rfrc_41.o rfrc_main.o rfrc_init.o rfrc_interrupts.o
	mplink 18f8722.lkr rfrc_41.o ifi_frc_8722.lib rfrc_main.o rfrc_init.o \
    rfrc_interrupts.o //o rfrc

rfrc_41.o : rfrc_41.c rfrc_41.h rfrc_main.h
	mcc18 -Op- -fo rfrc_41.o rfrc_41.c

rfrc_main.o : rfrc_main.c rfrc_main.h
	mcc18 -Op- -fo rfrc_main.o rfrc_main.c 

rfrc_init.o : rfrc_init.c rfrc_init.h
	mcc18 -Op- -fo rfrc_init.o rfrc_init.c 

rfrc_interrupts.o : rfrc_interrupts.c rfrc_interrupts.h rfrc_main.h
	mcc18 -Op- -fo rfrc_interrupts.o rfrc_interrupts.c

clean :
	rm -rf *.o; rm -rf *.hex
	rm -rf rfrc
	rm -rf rfrc.cod
	rm -rf rfrc.lst

I wrote this when I was still bad at writing makefiles, so now I’d probably make a rule to compile all objects, but the above does work and is also a bit easier to understand, I think.

And, although my code was never tested (so it could be completely terrible and bad), you can find the entire repository here: svn://home.russfrank.net/development/team41_2008/rfrc/ . (If you need an SVN client for windows, try TortoiseSVN: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) It does compile, but I never actually put it on an RC.

Hope this helps!

13

I set up Eclipse using the instructions posted on the (now old) WPILib site, here: http://users.wpi.edu/~bamiller/WPILib/

That setup uses Mingw, but the best parts are the two plugins that Brad provides: one for error parsing, and one that provides an mcc18 toolchain that lets you use a managed make project.

Also, you don’t have to use WPILib to use that setup. I also was able to compile and run Kevin Watson’s code with only a minimum of changes (basically just leave out the WPILib headers and libraries).

Overall, it is the simplest path I have found to getting Eclipse working with the mcc18 compiler.