TouchGFX Designer Examples are old and do not work with newer eval boards

[andywild2]

Hello to all,

I am fighting for days now to get a simple Animated Image Example running on a new STM32F769I-EVAL Board Rev. B

The main problem is that the examples are downloaded from the cloud by the TouchGFX designer and are very very old!

They do not reflect the newest BSP/CMSIS/HAL from ST.

I have CubeMX 6.1.0. When I first open the *ioc file of the example, it says it is written in 5.6.1 and wants to migrate. OK I did it.

But when I generate code with CubeMX it requires still TouchGFX Generator 4.13! But I have the new version 4.15 installed.

And even if I reinstall 4.13, it is not compatible with CubeMX 6.1.0....

The project compiles ok in Keil IDE, but because old BSP drivers are used the program hanges (for example wrong I2C adress for touch controller is used)

 Can you please help me to solve this dead lock?

How can I work with TouchGFX Examples using latest CubeMX software on an actual (Revision B! not A) eval board?

Thanks for your help indeed

Andy

[Alexandre RENOUX]

Hello andywild2,

I'm very sorry for this issue. We will try to fix this as soon as possible.

We have many boards to update regularly trying to follow the new versions of CubeMX, CubeIDE and CubeProgrammer while still striving to improve TouchGFX and add new features. Please understand some possible delays in fixing this issue.

So far if you have Rev A, it should work but even in this case, I recommend using CubeMX 6.0.1, CubeProgrammer 2.5.0 and CubeIDE 1.4.0 with TouchGFX 4.15.

/Alexandre

[Romain DIELEMAN]

Hi,

I can add to Alexandre's message that we are aware of the issue with this specific board. It is unfortunately one of the last supported board that has still not been updated to CubeMX 6.0.1 and to TouchGFX 4.15. It is something that shall be done.

As Alexandre recommended I would not use CubeMX 6.1, but CubeMX 6.0.1 instead for now until the next patch for CubeMX is out (this is an something out of our reach). You can still run on target projects from TouchGFX Designer. If you need to do more specific mcu settings within CubeMX, I would recommend to download and use TouchGFX 4.13 and CubeMX 5.6 until we fix those issues.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

/Romain

[andywild2]

Hello Alexandre, Hello Romain,

Thank you for your answers.

If you don´t mind, I would like to describe my situation a bit more detailed.

I developed a product with KEIL MDK-Arm, STM32 and emWin for the GUI about 10 years ago. This product must be renewed now in terms of a nicer smart phone like GUI. So I am familiar with this toolchain and we will use Keil for the new product again.

Looking at the nice pictures and videos of TouchGFX I thought this might be a good solution for the future, rather than emWin.

In order to make this decision I ordered the eval board. I can accept that there is still a lot of work to do with new eval boards.

But I have still a very fundamental problem how to understand the linkage Touch Designer <-> TouchGenarator/CubeMX <-> Keil-IDE

Coming from Keil to TouchGFX-Designer:

In order to solve the mess described above I tried to establish a new clean product from scratch at the KEIL uVision IDE.

So I selected the chip STM32F769, RTOS2, a bit of middleware and CubeMx. In order to open CubeMx for further configuring the chip, I invoked CubeMx out of the Keil IDE. After some configurations I press "Generate Code" in CubeMX. Afterwards I can see STCube generated files in my project, as well as a dedicated *.ioc file WITHIN my project. All compiles ok, everything works.

The problems occur as soon as I want to use Graphis with TouchGFX. Let me explain step by step:

I install the TouchGFX Generator and enable the Graphics plugin.

As soon as I press "Generate Code" a NEW AND SEPARATED MDK-Arm project is generated!! This project has NO linkage to the KEIL-project I was coming from!

There is a new *.ioc File within the newly generated "TouchGFX" folder!

When I use the *.part file then to start the Touch Designer and for example place a button, my original KEIL-Project isn´t notified either...

As a conclusion I can not see a consistent way how TouchGFX can work with the Keil-Toolchain.

So I tried it the other way round, coming from TouchGFX Designer to KEIL:

The main problem in TouchGFX Designer is (even 4.15) YOU MUST SELECT A BOARD!!

That means as soon as you press "Create" the old files are donwloaded from the cloud.

So even if you installed the newest TouchDesigner previously, you are FORCED to use the specific version of CubeMx and TouchGenerator the board examples were made with! That happens even with the plain page example.

So for my understanding this problem will persist in the future even if you fix my current board issues.

The moment a new TouchGFX Designer or TouchGFX Generator software occurs, I will still be bonded to the old versions, I designed my project with originally...

On the other hand life could be so easy:

The only interface for TouchGFX to the rest of the system is a function for updating the framebuffer to be called regularily by a RTOS. Plus handling of touch events.

Thus the TouchDesigner and the TouchGenerator should be happy if they see an EXISTING project with a CubeMX ioc file and a corresponding MDK-Arm project file providing all the necessary resources to establish the TouchGFX GUI on top of it.

But as described above the TouchDesigner/TouchGenerator just throw away my project and make their own.

Why can TouchDesigner/TouchGenerator not detect a fully working environment and use it properly?

I am willing to use every workaround to get a working system, but with newest software.

In this regard I am just not aware how to use TouchDesigner, making a project, BUT WITHOUT being FORCED to select a board, that kicks me into old software!

Who can I make a project from scratch using TouchGFX and Keil IDE?

Your kind answer is very welcome in order to choose TouchGFX for the future and not emWin.

Thank you

Andy

[Alexandre RENOUX]

Hello,

When you want to create a project from scratch, you don't start with TouchGFX Designer. The Designer is a user interface to facilitate UI development.

You start with CubeMX and in CubeMX you set to Keil the IDE to be used and set all the things you need for your MCU. Then generate code. Only now you use Keil as an IDE to build and debug. Nothing more. You can add TouchGFX Generator plugin after, this should still work. But you should start development from CubeMX not Keil. Think of your IDE as a tool to build and debug.

Regarding the fact that TouchGFX does not detect a fully working environment and use it properly, we will try to find what's the issue. Thank you for your feedback.

/Alexandre