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[on:]

I've started a playground page to document the pins used by shields.  Please add your boards as you see fit (please add them alphabetically).

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/ShieldPinUsage

Comments, suggestions are welcome.

Is the page name good?  I've also added a link from the "InterfacingWithHardware" page.

Ultimately, the "SimilarBoards" page really needs a huge revamp, breaking it into different categories.

b

[Reply #1 on:]

Need permission to do so, but WiShield 2.0 pins can be found here http://asynclabs.com/wiki/index.php?title=WiShield_2.0 (if someone that can want to add)

[Reply #2 on:]

added create an account on the Playground and edit the pages there.

b

[Reply #3 on:]

oh, didn't notice that option... oh well, its the eyes you go blind on first  ;D

[Reply #4 on:]

There was another recent post about shield pins:

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273360443

Based on their idea, I added a chart version of the pins to the bottom of your new page to see if the chart version works better than a listing.

[Reply #5 on:]

The chart version makes it a lot easier to see which shields conflict with other shields, so thanks for putting that format up for comparison to the original tables.

Do you foresee "Notes" in the left column, under the shield name (like you entered for the AsyncLabs WiShield 2.0)? Some of the notes in the table format are pretty extensive already, with more complex shields to come, I'm sure.

[Reply #6 on:]

This morning, I altered estranged's table (concept from Mark Bramwell) a bit.

The ordering of the pins is important.  People often overlook the fact that the analog pins can also be used as digital pins (since they are not labeled as such on the board).  For example, our uMMC can also use "analog" pins 0 and 1 (digital pins 14 and 15) as a soft serial port.

To help with this, I put the analog pins at the end of the list instead of at the beginning, and also labeled them with their digital pin number equivalent.

Also, because the table will potentially get quite long, using the pin number to indicate usage, instead of just an x, will help with understanding column position - you know those long, wide tables where you have to scroll back a hundred times because you can't remember what each column is for.

What do you think about the positioning of the description/notes field under the pin usage?  It's really the only place to put that data, unless you have links to another section - but that gets complicated fast.

Thoughts?

b

[Reply #7 on:]

I like the stacking of the analog/digital pin idea, it makes it clearer that the analog pins can do double duty as higher number digital pins.

I don't really like the notes field interrupting the grid though.  Having a continuous grid you can scan your eyes up and down really makes a chart like this much more readable.  I think simply minimizing the notes as much as possible, and putting them in with the description is a better way to go.  Some of the comments seem unrelated to pin requirements (Arduino ethernet/xbee)

We could lobby for a wider playground page, that would alleviate this whole problem.

What do you think about the positioning of the description/notes field under the pin usage?  It's really the only place to put that data, unless you have links to another section - but that gets complicated fast.

Regarding the notes, I think that is a bad idea as it clutters up the table and also makes it more complicated to modify and add to.

I think that the pin numbers is a good idea but really we want a 'compare shields' part with a user selection thing to be able to get any 2 or 3 shields next to each other so they can easily compare the pin usage and other requirements. This would not be easy though (well maybe to some people - speak up!)

Mowcius

[Reply #8 on:]

Hmm, wonder if I can make my webserver dynamic generate images like the one from Mark Bramwell...

Plus the option to easily add new to it.

[Reply #9 on:]

Hmm, wonder if I can make my webserver dynamic generate images like the one from Mark Bramwell...

I've used the PHP image library to do that sort of thing and it was fairly easy.

But, an HTML table would be much easier to generate.  It generally amounts to: output "top stuff" (<table> tag, header row), output each row in a loop, output "bottom stuff" (footer row, </table> tag).

[Reply #10 on:]

Yeah, also figured out how to do it Modified version of a surveillance system I made, combined 6 images in one and stored it and such.

Was just to try something else ;D

[Reply #11 on:]

I do think its important to come up with some solution that can live within the Playground Wiki.  That ensures that long after we are all gone from the forum, someone else can keep things up to date.

[Reply #12 on:]

Agreed.  I wish we could modify that page width. [smiley=cry.gif]

I was thinking about maybe changing the table such that we could color code the "pins" and have a legend.  e.g.

Passive pins = background yellow
Optional pins = background light green
etc...

But I'm having trouble with making an easy way to do that within pmWiki (e.g. table cell backgrounds with wikiStyles).  I only managed to make the text color background change.  Any ideas?

See what you think.  I've mocked up the page with the coloring examples.

b

[Reply #13 on:]

But I'm having trouble with making an easy way to do that within pmWiki (e.g. table cell backgrounds with wikiStyles).  I only managed to make the text color background change.  Any ideas?

Well someone coloured the columns black or is doing that easier than a single box...

I think the highlighting is ok.

Mowcius

[Reply #14 on:]

Hmm unfortunately I see this idea seems to have died.

I have been looking into a way to do a comparison table (like they do for online stores) so you can pick products and compare.

I think that having a big table is ok but you really want to be able to click the different shields and compare them to see if any pins usages overlap.

Anyone know of an easy way to do this? Obviously this would not be possible on the playground but somewhere is better than nowhere.

Mowcius