Feedback on current state (v0.4.0)

06 Mar 2019

First of all, I really like the use of a familiar text editor (I work a lot with vscode). Since this is a beta I wanted to give in my opinion on the current state of the tool.

Positive

  • Use of the Monaco Editor -> Gives it a nice design + Intellisense is nice
  • Most part of the tool is very user-friendly -> programming and debugging is easily made.

Suggestions

Following points will start with what I don't like and how it could be changed (a suggestion)

  • Log-In needed -> I want to use this tool at work and since the company has their own proxy, I can't login. The ability to clone or push repositories to the mbed cloud and the Pelian integration should be restricted by a login, everything else shouldn't be.
  • No option to create a hex file -> I work with a custom made LPC1768 board, that uses the mbed OS, and I program it with Flash Magic, which uses hex files for programming. Having the ability to change the elf to a hex files would ease the flashing a lot, as the file doesn't need to be converted.
  • Lack of Settings -> For example the creation of hex files (like a checkbox or something similar), studio design (which could allow for personal themes) or the font style are some things, that I want to configure. There should be some kind of menu to be able to configure settings (like vscode's settings UI)
  • No option for custom boards -> Something that I always wanted, was to have an option to use a custom board. When choosing custom board, pinnames could be defined and such.

Overall, despite the majority of critical points, I really like it. It's something I always wanted and I might consider using it in the future.

PS: is the mbed-os library copied for every new program or does it act like a master-library and just the compiled files are put into the program's folder?

01 Mar 2019

Hi Joel,

Thank you for taking the time to try the beta and give us some feedback on Mbed Studio! I'm glad that you generally like the direction we are taking the product in.

Your observations generally map quite well to what we would like to add to Mbed Studio. Support for custom targets (and custom build profiles where you can pass in your own flags) is something that we want to create a good experience for, and that will be a natural area to focus on.

The proxy issue on login is something we will investigate and address.

Our reasons for a login are that we plan to make Mbed Studio more tightly integrated with the Mbed website ecosystem, source control, and eventually Online Compiler workspace. You've raised an interesting point on whether we might make it more "granular", but given that you only need to log in once, with a long session time, it feels like the right starting point.

To answer your question about Mbed OS, there is a copy of the source per program. It should be possible to also have an option of a single "master" library in future, but we prioritised being able to use different versions of the OS per program in the first release.

Thanks again for your feedback! Joe

06 Mar 2019

Joe Alderson wrote:

Hi Joel,

Thank you for taking the time...

Hi Joe

Thanks for the response. Looks nice for the future!

Also sorry for making more "negative" points, I just wanted to give some suggestions (I'm going to change it to suggestions now). I'm overhaul really happy with the tool (for a beta it works very well) and I'm excited for the future of it.

As a small info for the proxy issue: I get the error "connect ETIMEOUT 18.196.112.108:443" so it's mostly a proxy side thing. If it is possible to change it to something that works without having to change proxy (which will most likely be impossible due to the high security, the company has to have), that would be nice to have, but for my own projects it's useful enough I found out how to change the proxy settings on some tools, maybe add a small settings tab in the menu bar to change the proxy-server.

Also small detail thing: Visual Studio Code's menu bar has it's own theme (which can be changed by installing themes). Can we expect such thing too (being able to change colors by, let's say, changing a CSS file or something similar). It would just give it a complete look.

Is there some kind of roadmap available to see what will be added?

-Joel

01 Apr 2019

Also having the "connect ETIMEOUT 18.196.112.108:443" at work.

08 Apr 2019

Hello,

This is great work... But i encountered some problems... (windos 10 64 bit)

1- Studio is too slow.. Responses are slow. 2- Update library to latest version does not work ALWAYS. Sometimes it works sometimes not. Similiar for version selection option. 3- Delete a program (active or not) does not delete ALWAYS.

Regards...

11 Apr 2019

First of all, I'm french so sorry for my poor english.

I run mbed studio 0.4.0 recently ( one month) in replacement of visual studio + visual GDB. This tool is exactly what i want : an offline official tool. I love this tool, it's a great work.

But I have few remarks :

- I'm an electronics teacher and i plan use it in my school but i have the proxy problem (a variant, cannot login but no error message) so it's necessary for me to have an option for enter proxy settings in future.

- I have had some problems on windows 10 x64 : I need to had the path of "local python interpreter" bundled with mbed studio to my system path, after this it will work like a charm.

- Projects locations is fixed in user profile, in my school it's a problem, actually i resolve it by making a "symbolic link" but in future it's useful to have an option to move the projects folder.

- Compilation is slow in effect .... but the problem was identical in visual studio + visual GDB witch use GCC instead of ARMCC, so in my mind it's a windows problem not a mbed studio problem, I have excluded mbed studio folders of windows defender scan and it speed up compilations a little.

But I dont want to be negative !!!! With a location selector for projects folder, a proxy settings options and ability to use "a master copy of mbed os" instead of local copy in each projetc, this tool will be perfect for my usage.

jean-marc

11 Apr 2019

EDIT : I have reinstalled win10 from scratch, installed mbed studio, just added "local python" to my path and excluded mbed folder from windows defender ...... compilation speed is a this time more faster !!!

Jean-Marc