Libraries Folders Names on Arduino IDE (v1.04) with the Digispark Addons

[avenue33]

Hi!

I'm not entirely happy with the new way the libraries folders are named on the Arduino IDE (v1.04) with the Digispark Addons release. It raises huge issues of portability for my embedXcode template for Xcode.

Adding Arduino_ prior to the name of the genuine Arduino libraries —e.g. renaming EEPROM for Arduino_EEPROM— raises compatibility issues, especially when other plug-ins are installed as Teensyduino.

The still-in-beta 1.5x release of the Arduino IDE brings an elegant solution, as each platform has its own dedicated folder under hardware with everything inside, including cores, libraries and variants. Here is the example for SAM —ie Arduino Due— see image Platform-specific folder.png

The main libraries folder only contains platform-agnostic libraries— see image Shared libraries.png

In the meantime, as it has a different name, the DigisparkArduino application can stay along the Arduino one. I've designed an icon based on the logo —see Digistump icon.png

Maybe for the next release!

[digistump]

I agree the library naming is not at all ideal - and the truth of it is that it is attempt to find a balance between portability, standards, not changing too much, etc - and level of support. I've seen lots of confusion due to no clear difference between the example names for Digispark and regular Arduino and just putting Digispark before the Digispark ones didn't seem to work. I thought about pulling the standard libraries all together but that felt too limiting.


I have my eye on 1.5 and will make the switch to it likely with the next release - so do know that this is only an interim solution until then.


Thanks!
Erik

[Mark]

Erik
For what its worth, I have my sketches in a seperate folder.
I generally just open a sketch, so the fact that a DS example might not be under the menu doesn't really matter.
 
 
Rather than try to reinvent the whole IDE and run the risk of future IDE versions crashing your party, you may wish to use a seperate folder to house them in.
 
Whether this will work with Mac's, I can't say as I don't own one.
 
Library handling is also something that needs some attention, as the user may have one optimised for DS and a similar one that works for normal Arduino.
 
Perhaps the Ardunion team are able to assist.
Up until now new boards have been added to boards.txt etc, without having to consider anything that isn't a full Arduino. The future is likely to include more part Arduino's and consideration to the proper handling of varying libraries and the like should be standardised to aid new users.
 
While not the most eligant or space saving (HD's are cheap) I have my Arduino IDE's in seperate directories, so that I avoid the issue's. (Digispark, 023 and 1.04)
 
Mark

[avenue33]

Erik, thank you for your answer.

The last release of DigisparkArduino as a separate application is the best solution. No more overlapping libraries!

I even designed an icon for the DigisparkArduino

The inner structure of the Arduino 1.5 IDE is cleaner, but 1.5 is still in beta, although it works fine.