Wishes and suggestions for upcoming TouchGFX Designer releases

[HP]

I'm not sure if this has been a topic before (if it has feel free to delete / merge this)..

I'm starting to get the hang of using the Designer now. A few things that could be really nice:

• Option to select which project types to compile
  • Reason: I'm most likely never going to use either KEIL or IAR for my development. If I could disable the code generation for those I would have fewer files and folder to maintain. I know that the actual code generated is located elsewhere but still - fewer folders to not look through searching for code 🙂
• Option to disable the code generation for the Simulator
  • Reason: Currently some of the issues with generating a CubeIDE project comes with the Simulator files being included. If they weren't there could we solve some of those issues?
• When selecting application template there's different versions available. for the F746-Disco board there is a 1.0.0 and a 2.0.0 (or something along those lines). Selecting the newest by default could be great. Also - How do I check for updates on those application templates?

Maybe somebody else will have more suggestions for features?

[HP]

one more thing I discovered in the designer:

item coordinates are not copied across screens. if you create a few items and place them on a screen and select all of them, create a new screen and insert them, all items will be at the same coodinate (0,0). being able to copy a screen is really nice when designing a menu system since most of the layout will be identical.

[Martin KJELDSEN]

This is already fixed and will be out in the next version we can release 🙂 Soon!

/Martin

[Martin KJELDSEN]

Agreed, the videos should not be required anymore as issues are fixed and usability/ease of use improves.

We have already implemented support for sections in the designer - It, along with a ton of other updates, will be out soon. We're talking 4.12.* at this point!

On your point 1 and 2, that's not something i can assist with (atleast item 2) - There's too much to do around here 🙂 I think there's a guide for STMCubeProgrammer that we followed loosely here to create a loader for a G0 board.

Thanks, @HP​. and thank you for your valuable contributions also 🙂

/Martin

[Martin KJELDSEN]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll pass it on to the designer team 🙂

[scottSD]

Related to copying....it would be nice to be able to copy an item in a screen from one instance of TouchGFX into another instance of TouchGFX. This is not supported and most times, I end up having to recreate items.

There is capability to copy/paste from one screen to another screen within the same instance of TouchGFX, but it would be very useful to be able to copy to another instance (another project).

[Trevor Jones]

I would like to see a solution that does not require the external SDRam

there seems enough Ram inside the new H7 parts for decoding small images or image slices..

could support the eMMC or QSPI memory mode...

the SDRam costs too much power... and generates noise

[Martin KJELDSEN]

TouchGFX does not require SDRAM 🙂 I updated your other post with an example. Something must be wrong on our end to make you think so, so thanks for that.

/Martin

[Martin KJELDSEN]

Thanks, @scottSD​,

I'll talk to the designer team about this. We had a chat yesterday about some of @HP​s suggestions. It's really important to them that they can actually SEE that there's a desire to have something. If it's just 1 person, it doesn't have the same weight when they do planning.

I think we'll do another round of this when we get the upvote/downvote module implemented on this community.

/Martin

[HP]

I think that most of the suggestions here is more than just me.. I know at least 4 persons that are very eager to try our the whole touchGFX thing - along with a whole class of 'Datamatikere' at my workplace. I'm pushing the ST platform because it will be chaper than a rPi with touchscreen and each student would be able to have their own board to tinker with.

I'm actively telling them to wait right now because of the integration issues (hey, we are technically in Q4 now, right?? :D)

The issues with the designer are of course minor but having them will for sure make a lot of things easier for a lot of people.

I don't have many metrics, but in just 3 weeks the initial configuration video I did have more than 120 views - that's quite a lot of people!

in 5 months your official video have almost 5000 views along with 1500 for the one in another resolution. I believe that it is fair to say that your tools are needed - the real questions is how many are waiting to dive in and how many are struggling right now?

sorry for being pushy - I am just very eager to get going with the updates!

[Martin KJELDSEN]

"Think" isn't going to cut it when there's so much to do 🙂 I know that's probably difficult to comprehend. But some stuff is happening on this community to allow people to cast votes instead of having a thread like this with just you and me active.

So much has happened with TouchGFX (We're at 4.12.3 now) but we haven't been able to release it due to internal restrictions. Could you elaborate on "integration issues"? Just so that i'm completely sure we're in sync.

We'll be able to release 4.12.3 with the new version of CubeMX (5.4, out soon), which is the first step. Then the next step is getting the CubeIDE/CubeMX integration right - which is something i'm working on almost exclusively right now.

Also, please be pushy!

/Martin