I worked long hours on my project, and it was working well. But after a series of edits, somehow the application was not working the way it should. What did I change to break my code? Usually I smile, because I have things in a version control system. But: not this time (I should know better!). Luckily there are some ways to find out what has been changed: with the Local History and Quick Diff.
If I decide to delete a project from my workspace, I hit delete and get this dialog:
delete project contents on disk (cannot be undone)
If I press OK, then my workspace will not list that project anymore. But what about this ‘Delete project content on disk (cannot be undone)‘ check box?
If you are like me, then it is easy to miss a bracket or two in my source code. Or I have tons of closing brackets at the end of a function, and it is hard to tell which one is which? Eclipse comes with basic bracket support: you select/click a bracket, and it helps you to find the closing one. I was pretty happy about that, unless I saw a list of most popular Eclipse plugin. One plugin stood out of the masses in the Top 10 Most Popular New Eclipse Plugins review: Bracketeer. That plugin exactly helps me to solve my problem: which bracket is which?
Brackets
It would be really cool to know to which code block each ‘}’ belongs. And Bracketeer can do this for me!
Installation of Eclipse plugins is really ease: I use the menu Help > Install New Software, point to the update site and I have it installed. Uninstallation of a plugin is not that obvious. Not sure why it is so hidden, and yes, I rarely need to uninstall a plugin. But from time to time I try out a new plugin, and if it does not fit my needs, I want to get it removed. How to uninstall it?
Percepio has released a new V2.2.2 library of FreeRTOS+Trace (see Tracing with FreeRTOS+Trace from Percepio). The new release comes with many improvements. The trace recording is optimized for more efficient recording and longer trace with the same amount of memory.
Note: Because the trace data structure is changed and optimized, I need the latest tool on the PC/host from http://www.percepio.com.
I have updated the Percepio Processor Expert component to generate and use the new trace library V2.2.2. This includes the new settings in the component properties as shown below:
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When I create a project with CodeWarrior for MCU using Processor Expert and S08GB60, I’m asked if I want to have a Debug and/or Release configuration:
Debug or Release in Processor Expert
Debug or Release? For an embedded microcontroller? Does this make any sense?
I’m stressing the CodeWarrior debugger a lot: having multiple boards attached, debugging things in parallel, switching and unplugging boards all the time. I have my eclipse IDE running for several days and nights (up to a week or more), with constantly suspending and resuming and switching networks. And sometimes it is my fault (see Device is Secure?). But well, sometimes the CodeWarrior debugger has a problem too. Luckily, a simple trick gets things back on track.
It is one of these long weekends which allow to catch up on many things. One thing I finally completed was the move to FreeRTOS V7.1.1. With this I did some tests using the Tower boards, including the Kinetis one. So I have rebuild my Kinetis K60 application and was ready to flash the device. But then to my surprise I got this dialog:
Device is secure. Erase to unsecure?
FreeRTOS V7.1.1 was released beginning of May 2012. Finally I had some week-end time to integrate the changes and upgrade the Processor Expert component for it. V7.1.1 comes with smaller and larger changes. This includes maintenance and better support for various ports. One change is the removal of CLI from the original FreeRTOS distribution, an extra port macro and one trace hook macro.
The Freescale ColdFire V2 (MCF52259) is a great communication device: an embedded Processor like a Swiss Army Knife: Great peripherals, USB and Ethernet interface, a lot of flash application space and up to 64 KByte of RAM. I’m using that core in many projects, and there is great community support for it with boards and software. Unfortunately Freescale somehow provides Processor Expert support only half way for it. Support for the I2C bus is missing :-(.
MCU on Eclipse 