Ok I am a complete newb so I apologize for this quesiton but... I can not figure out where I am suppose to store Libraries on the Mac so I can call them up. The only folder I have is an "Arduino" folder under documents with nothing inside of it. Thanks for the help in advance.
here is the error Im getting in case anyone is confused on what I am talking about:
27: error: NewSoftSerial.h: No such file or directory In function 'void setup()':
I guess I am just literally dumb... I still can not get the libraries to show up... I put all my libraries in the "Arduino" folder on the mac and it is still not recognize them
I too am a Mac OSX user. The last version of Arduino that I got was 0011, and that install gave me the hardware, drivers, examples, reference folders under my arduino-0011 directory.
The 0017 install just gave me the USB drivers and the arduino.app application. None of the environment support folders were there. I've been hunting down new bootloaders, etc. but why doesn't the new install put those support directories in the arduino folder any more? Where should I be getting all of that useful stuff? There is no "installer" per-se, the DMG file just has the application in it.
The download package for Arduino 16 has all the necessary goodies included in the zip file.
The current download package for Arduino 17 is a dmg file instead of a zip file, and includes the application and drivers only, no libraries directory etc.
I resorted to installing v16 since I couldn't figure out how to install libraries in v17.
OK, I looked again. None of those support directories are in the 0017 package. I had no problems adding libraries, the docs explained that pretty well and it worked right away, but I'm trying to put a bootloader on my MEGA328p board, but nothing was there...
In my opinion all the source files/libaries should be removed from the Mac OS X bundle to begin with. End-users should never have to "show package contents" of an app to install or change files especially when there are many replacement sources/libraries for the default files included within the arduino app.
All those source files should be placed in a new Arduino folder located at "User's home folder"/Library/Application Support/Arduino. To avoid requiring an installer app to place those files there the Arduino IDE could simply copy the folders/source files in the app bundle to that location on startup if they are not already there. You would also want a menu option in the Arduino IDE to be able to select which arduino "default" libraries you want to use, i.e.:
In this case the user has the option of using Arduino-0017 or MyCustomDefaultLibaries. Both folders would consist of the following folders which are presently located INSIDE the application bundle: examples hardware/cores hardware/libaries
Some details would still need to be worked out but that is the general ideas. It would still keep it exactly the same simplicity for users who don't know anything about this but also allow for more advanced users to easily make modifications that don't have to be redone with every arduino update.
OK, I looked again. None of those support directories are in the 0017 package.
Select the Arduino application
Chose 'Show package Contents' - a new window will appear.
Now navigate to:-
Contents
Resources
Java
Hardware
Libraries
And there you will find all the standard libraries.
You can install extra libraries here but that is not the preferred place.
The preferred place is Documents -> Arduino -> libraries
If you haven't got a libraries folder inside the Arduino one then create one and put the extra user libraries here.