Arduino IDE and Chipkit Network Libs?

[kenryan]

I just bought an MX4 and pile of PMODs to play with and am trying to get my bearings on the tools (I'm an FPGA guy, new to Arduino environment).

I downloaded all the .zip files I could find that seemed to be related to the hardware I bought.  But I'm confused on installing libraries for Arduino IDE.

As I understand it, MPIDE was a fork of Arduino IDE but was recently re-merged, the chipkit web pages indicate Aduino IDE is the tool to use.  But in trying to install the chipkit network and usb libs, I can't get them to show up in the library list.  I did the install from zip file.  Looking into the zip file I see a lot of ".x" files and not the file types that are indicated in the Arduino library installation tutorial.

Am I missing something, or are MPIDE and Arduino IDE funamentally incompatible environments? (And where does MPLAB fit into this)?

When I follow the resource page links from the individual PMODs I nearly always end up at a dead end, it looks like the page skeletons are in but have not yet been populated with content.

Thanks in advance for any kind soul who can get me oriented in the right direction!

ken

[JColvin]

Hi Ken,

You're right in that MPIDE was essentially a fork of the Arudino IDE, but now the Arudino IDE is what is recommend to be used. You'll need to download the chipKIT Core for the Arduino IDE which you can do as described on the chipKIT website here. 

As for getting the libraries installed, you can download the zip files for any of our Pmods from their Resource Center, either on the main introduction page to the Pmod at the bottom under "Example Projects" (make sure you either download the MPIDE or Arduino IDE example) or via the link under "Additional Information" inside of their Reference Manual. You are correct in seeing that not all of the Pmods currently have libraries available; we're working on getting a library available for each Pmod, although you can always post a question on our Forum about a particular Pmod if you're not sure where to start. 

But back to the library installation. You can either open up the Arduino IDE and install the library in it's .zip file form or install them manually into the Arduino\libraries directory on your computer (mine is inside Documents on my Windows machine). Both methods are described on the Arudino website here.

As for MPLAB, it does not integrate at all with the Arduino IDE. In the past, Digilent made some demos that used MPLAB, but that was discontinued in favor of MPIDE, and now for the Arduino IDE with the chipKIT Core. As you also probably noticed, there are a few Pmods that have demos written for them in either Vivado or ISE, which is where I'm guessing you're seeing the .x files from. Naturally, these will not be compatible with the Arduino IDE as they were written in some form of HDL or using Xilinx's MicroBlaze.

Please let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[JColvin]

Hi again,

I just realized that your post title said chipKIT Network libs. Those libraries are a little more tricky to use and I personally haven't gotten to use a lot of them. The biggest trouble you'll encounter is if any of those libraries call plib.h, it will not work on the Arudino IDE because plib.h (designed by Microchip) isn't open source so the chipKIT community (not Digilent) was unable to incorporate it into the chipKIT Core for the Arduino IDE. 

If you're seeing that issue, at this point I think the best thing to try would be use the most recent version of MPIDE (before it was depreciated in favor of the Arduino IDE with chipKIT Core) which you can download for Windows, Mac, or Linux. As long as the correct board is selected, I have been able to successfully compile the programs on that edition of MPIDE (although I don't have the hardware to test the functionality myself).

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[majenko]

You shouldn't need to download any network libraries. chipKIT-core (the Arduino IDE plugin) as well as MPIDE both contain the DEIPcK and DEWFcK libraries which are the current Digilent networking stack for Ethernet and WiFi boards. There are examples in the IDE there to get you going, as well as the HTTPServer class and examples for running a web server.