The first part of the tutorial introduced you to basic and most common operations that can improve basic skills and speed with the mikroC IDE. In this second part of our series, we will go through more specific options and tools that might not be found in other IDEs. These tools which can bring more then speed to your project.
Today's focus will be on the Library Manager. This is an additive tool that makes the IDE specific and extended, allowing you to add libraries with few mouse clicks. These libraries extend hardware access and features to your project.
Introduction
There are many of additions that make the IDE easier to use. Usage is not complex and can be discovered with simple exploration into the IDE, for example :
- Code Explorer ( View > Code Explorer ) is actually a view that lists all the functions, variables, types, directives and so on used by the current active file. This is compatible to an overview of the the file. Mouse over the members inside this view provides additional information about that particular member.
- Quick Converter ( View > Quick Converter ) as its own name says, converts the values into the desired type. This helps you to forget the searching and bookmarking web sites made for this kind of job every time you need to convert manually some data. Inside embedded programming, that is very often the situation.
Behind the usage of all of these additions stands the question of habit. For example, if you already have a habit of searching online solutions for conversion, that might be a bad habit that should be changed. The faster you involve, the faster you will realize the reason why additions like Quick Converter exists on the mikroC IDE.
Tools
As the mikroC IDE is specialized for embedded development. The tools inside the IDE are also customized for the embedded development.
- Active Comments Editor is particularly useful when working with LCD displays.
- Graphic LCD Bitmap Editor allows you to import .bpm picture, edit it and then export the code.
- HID Terminal includes the HID communication terminal for USB communication.
- Interrupt Assistant assist user in configuring interrupts. Output is the code needed for a interrupt routine.
- LCD Custom Character allow you to generate the code of custom chars used for LCD Displays.
- Seven Segment Editor is a convenient visual panel which returns decimal/hex value for any viable combination you would like to display on seven segment display.
- UDP and USART are terminals for their particular type of communication.
Remember the first part introduction and the words - there might be easy solution to do something complex and boring just in few clicks - these tools do this for you.
The most useful tools are also presented at the Tools Toolbar but if you remember the part one we have said that toolbar can be expanded with the external tools which can be easy added to the IDE ( Tools > Options > Tools ).
Want to customize the IDE? Once you have added an external tool you can easily start that tool directly from the IDE without minimizing or searching the start menu. You can add maximum ten of external tools but limitation for adding only some specific external tools does not exists so, for example, you can add the windows calculator. There is also an option to assign custom keyboard shortcuts for the every single external tool.
The "must have" tools for your IDE might be the first one from the picture - Timer Calculator. This is the free program developed by our software department which generates code for the timer interrupt depend on requested period for the selected MCU.
Library Manager
The most powerful part of the our IDE we left for the end. The Library Manger allows you to import the libraries inside the IDE and make them like built-in parts of the IDE. Currently mikroC comes with the more than 60 default libraries which are the most common used inside the embedded world.
Installing of the new library is the job for package manager, placed in tools menu an a part of the IDE that allows everyone to pack his own library and distribute it as an addition to the mikroC IDE or to unpack and install the library made by someone else like an addition for his own IDE. The package represents the compressed library with help documentation and examples of the usage. Package manager allows you to pack and distribute the source code or compiled binaries depend on your wish.
Newly installed libraries will be shown on the bottom of the list under the default ones as an new branch separated from the default one named mikroE.
The default libraries are actually the must have ones for every IDE focused on embedded development. All of the default libraries are documented with a simple example how to make your own implementation. User needs only has to double-click on any of the functions and the help documentation will be displayed. Usage of the default ones is even more simpler because you don't have to include any headers or to add a new search path because the IDE is doing that for you. You will have feeling like they are a part of the IDE.
SPI, CAN, I2C, UART are among the most common embedded communication protocols. You can also find LCD, TFT, USB, Ethernet, FLASH and many more supporting libraries for the devices that are already on a multitude of development boards.
Additional libraries in the form of packages can be found on our community web site - Libstock. As MikroElektroinka develops new hardware - all of our hardware parts have appropriate libraries ( at least examples ) so you don't have to search on Github or some other open source provider and adapt the code found for your application, everything is already on Libstock which can be accessed from library manager by icon shown on the top-bar.
The other benefits that are brought by Library Manager is that everything is just one or few clicks far away. You don't have to care about file system organizing. The library source code is not directly exposed to library user so your application source will be more cleaner.
Summary
This was the journey through the mikroC focused on the additions and options that can improve your speed and knowledge of the mikroC IDE. You can download it and use it free for smaller program code. There are many more things that you might like so don't be afraid to explore through the IDE.