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]

Sure @Martin KJELDSEN​ - let me try to elaborate on this.

I'm seeing more than one issue and I don't know which one is the most fitting so I will try to write them all down 🙂

I got the 746-disco board back before summer and got started. the F7 firmware 1.15 for CubeMX have a single example but it was unable to compile.

I had a look for help online and found this forum but the only thing I could find was some incomplete instructions made by other users on what they did to get the system to work.

I found the webinar from may 2018 on hardware integration but I felt that there were too many assumptions - i literally felt more stupid after watching that video than before.

Enter CubeIDE. nice. I was briefly over TrueStudio and the IAR workbench but I needed a free option - since my hope is to be able to use this in a classroom situation (and my work most likely won't invest in a floating license option).

The thing was that before you did the video guide on how to get a project up and running the only thing I could manage was the Designer examples. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do but no way of doing it - so it felt.

I found the condenser example and started figuring out the inner workings of hardware interaction. that was a lot of notepad++ files because there was no project management in that example.

Then I started doing the videos because I don't have any restrictions on what and when to release. They are mostly one-takes so the overhead have been very little for me. Sure there are mistakes in them but the feedback have been very positive. even a few ones asking me to do the same on a 769i board.

One of the things that have me most angered is that the CubeMX code generation will mess up the project settings with TouchGFX inside cubeIDE.

I'm using the project tool made by @Community member​ but even with that the device configuration tab have to be closed between each change or else the process tilts.

Currently I'm working on a custom board with SDRAM and display and I have a hard time figuring out the back and front porch settings. (App note 4861 is helping somewhat)

My current setop for this is the following:

1. open the device configuration and change the setting
2. save and wait for the compile to fail (!!!!)
3. use the tool to update the project settings
4. refresh project
5. change the HW_Init.cpp to point to a static image located in flash to test only the display and not the SDRAM implementation (which is way off right now)
6. recompile everything and start debugger
7. look at display and see weird stripes
8. go back to 1.

I acknowledge that this is not an easy process and I know that I will have to put in a lot of work yet to come.

I don't know how to put this - my first entry in the forum is 4 months old. that was just before you did the setup video. it seems that a lot of people are progressing at the same pace as I.

Just at the time I was struggling with the QSPI flash I found 4 threads that had the same issues and questions. That was about the time where I was working with the linker scripts and found that CubeMX didn't initialize the QSPI parameters correctly.

Now I'm at the custom board with SD-RAM and LTDC connectivity and look - questions about back and front porch settings.

A source of frustration is the update rate from ST. I know that you are working very hard to alleviate this and I can see how much time you spend on this board to help people getting everything to run.

bottom line is - the struggle it is to set up a project is too high currently. I wouldn't want to put students through this process even though I know what they could use this platform for.

I will gladly help where I can - I'm just on the wrong side of the 'great bælt' 😉

oh- and one last thing: what is up with this forum? when I hit the notification bell and click on a topic where I've been tagged I don't get all posts.. that's really annoying!

The voting thing is a good idea though. I will be looking forward to pushing even more suggestions :D

[Martin KJELDSEN]

Thanks. Let me get back to you with a more fulfilling reply than what i can fill in right now, i just wanted to let you know i've seen it.

/Martin

[scottSD]

You said a mouthful, HP. 👏

And it reflects my frustration very well---especially this:

"One of the things that have me most angered is that the CubeMX code generation will mess up the project settings with TouchGFX inside cubeIDE."

One of the engineers I work with is starting a project to display camera data and I was hesitant to tell him about STM32CubeIDE because I know how frustrating it will be for him. The only good thing is that he will likely not be using TouchGFX (at least initially) for it.

I will also be creating a project for a custom board soon and shudder to think about what I will run into.....really really really really really (not enough space here for number of reallys) looking forward to a version that doesn't have these problems.

I think this is where more information/tutorials would be useful. I imagine that there are a lot of people out there starting with demo boards but then laying out their own boards. There's nothing more frustrating than laying out a board and trying to get video out of it because its not configured correctly. I will be using a lot of different screen sizes and resolutions in upcoming months, so being able to do this efficiently is crucial.

By the way, I appreciate your video. I wasn't aware that you had more. Any links you can provide for those would be appreciated.

[HP]

@scottSD​ I'm glad that it was not all incoherent ramblings. I had an idea to list the problems I am facing but in the process I got lost on making bullet-lists..

I do believe the CubeIDE is getting really good. At least that's the vibe I'm getting from @Martin KJELDSEN​ and his hints in the different threads. the issues that we're facing seems to be addressed so I'm just telling myself that I'm lucky that I don't have a strict deadline for my project (August 2020 is still a long time away)

I agree with the information/tutorials/app notes. The more information the better. In my case I enjoy making the video guides so if something interesting pops up I do a short video on that.

I've made a playlist with my videos so far (6 for now), which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLibkEAAdgBQ-d4LvImVNNDlYKCX0tj6aH

The topics are:

1. setting up the CubeIDE project
2. adding a new RTOS task along the GUI task
3. configuring QSPI memory and adding external loader into CubeIDE
4. how to update the GUI from another task
5. how to update another task from the GUI
6. setting up a ringbuffer for a UART

All of these videos are done on the STM32F746-DISCO board so that's a quite big prerequisite if you want to follow this to the teeth.

Also - the videos are essentially just a condensed solution found in the forums so a BIG shoutout to all who provide insights into the inner workings of the STM32 MCU's :D

I have a few ideas on new videos such as custom board layout and the FMC and LTDC interfaces (which I'm still struggling with). There's a ton of good topics to cover and even though I might sound like I'm frustrated in my texts I am enjoying this process - I'm an engineer after all 😉

[scottSD]

I tested copy/paste from one instance of TouchGFX 4.12.3 to another instance and it does not work. I am sure this will get into the next release. 😉

[scottSD]

Another suggestion:

Custom Containers is another reason for adding copy/paste or export/import capability. While it is doable, having to copy the files over to other projects doesn't make for easy design reuse across multiple projects.

Links pertaining to this:

https://touchgfx.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360019529471-Export-Reuse-Custom-Containers

https://community.st.com/s/question/0D50X0000ADEdfxSQD/how-to-reuse-a-custom-container-in-a-new-touchgfx-project

[scottSD]

I put some steps down to show how to manually import Custom Containers from one project to another.

I put them in the "Share Activities" page:

https://community.st.com/s/feed/0D50X0000BXll30SQB