Bordmanager with boards in aphabetical order

Hi,
I posted a issue on github yesterday where I did a deconstruct of boards.txt so each board was in it's own file and then I made a simple batch that copied them to a complete boards.txt with the boards in alphabetical order.

Not the best approach but a quick and dirty solution.

I posted it as an improvement to the boards display in the board manager, but the reply was quite discouraging and like a brush off.

So as a first try to do a "code" contribution to the Arduino project, a quite simple and it would also simplify the way new boards can be added and it would increase the usability for people (like me) that shift boards from time to time.

Did I post it the wrong way, should I have done github pull request and made my minor contribution?

I posted a issue on github yesterday

Can you please post a link to where you raised it ?

Personally I think that rather than listing boards in alphabetical order it would be better to allow the user to arrange them in an order that suits them so that their most frequently used boards could be moved to the top of the list

oops-se:
I posted it as an improvement to the boards display in the board manager

Except you didn't sufficiently communicate the purpose of the issue. Issues are used to report bugs and to make feature requests. But your issue was "I made a batch script". That's not a bug report or a feature request. This is why I closed the issue.

oops-se:
the reply was quite discouraging and like a brush off.

I apologize if it felt that way to you. We have thousands of issues in the Arduino repositories, over 9000 in that repository alone, so maintaining the issue trackers is a lot of work. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to that work and mostly I do it on volunteer time. I try to do my best, but I may not always communicate effectively, and sometimes make mistakes as well.

In this case though, I do stand by my decision to close the issue.

But please don't be discouraged. I can say from personal experience that there opportunities for everyone to contribute to the Arduino project. You can't expect that every feature request will be implemented and every pull request will be merged. I currently have 1687 open PRs going all the way back to 2015. But I also have 3833 PRs that were merged! If you are persistent and always make your best effort, you will be sure to make the world a better place for many thousands of people.

oops-se:
it would also simplify the way new boards can be added

I disagree. This is something that only needs to be done once, and very rarely, so a script only adds one more thing for Arduino to maintain.

I also disagree with the approach of sorting the boards alphabetically. Let's look at your proposed order:

  • Adafruit Circuit Playground
  • Arduino BT
  • Arduino Duemilanove or Diecimila
  • Arduino Esplora
  • Arduino Ethernet
  • Arduino Fio
  • Arduino Gemma
  • Arduino Industrial 101
  • Arduino Leonardo ETH
  • Arduino Leonardo
  • Arduino Mega ADK
  • Arduino Mega or Mega 2560
  • Arduino Micro
  • Arduino Mini
  • Arduino Nano
  • Arduino NG or older
  • Arduino Pro or Pro Mini
  • Arduino Robot Control
  • Arduino Robot Motor
  • Arduino Uno WiFi
  • Arduino Uno
  • Arduino Yun Mini
  • Arduino Yun
  • LilyPad Arduino USB
  • LilyPad Arduino
  • Linino One

The first is not even an official Arduino board.

The next 8 are retired boards.

The most popular board of all is at position 21

I do think that the current order of the Arduino AVR Boards could be improved, but this should be done manually.

oops-se:
it would increase the usability for people (like me) that shift boards from time to time.

I agree, and this is why I suggested that you publish your batch file in a repository so it can be available to whoever might find it useful.

oops-se:
Did I post it the wrong way

I think you could have more clearly communicated your intent. Whenever submitting bug reports or feature requests to any project, I think it's very important to make a little extra effort to make sure it's very clear. Remember that what seems obvious to you will not be obvious at all to someone missing all the context you have in your brain.

oops-se:
should I have done github pull request

That is the best approach when you have a specific change you want to make to the contents of a repository. In fact, the appropriate repository is a different one:

UKHeliBob:
Can you please post a link to where you raised it ?

Here it is:

UKHeliBob:
most frequently used boards could be moved to the top of the list

There is a pull request to make this happen automatically:

There is a pull request to make this happen automatically:

That would be great if it were implemented

I had a very encouraging discussion with the ESP8266 team and they have a tool

boards.txt.py

And with that you can generate your own boards.txt sorted or not.

Link to that issue:

I thought this was quite clear:

"I got annoyed when trying to find the correct board in the "Board manager", as they are not in alphabetic order so..."

And as the order of the boards, it¨s just alphabetical order, no considerations if they are deprecated, not officials or whatever, it is in the same way my address nook is ordered.

I rather have an easy option to unlist boards and keep them unlisted after updates.

This Arduino IDE plugin might be of interest:

I haven't used it so I'm not sure whether the configuration persists through updates or not, but it certainly makes it easy to unlist boards.

pert:
This Arduino IDE plugin might be of interest:
GitHub - binatrix/arduino-board-switch-plugin: Arduino plugin to select which platform boards do you want to see in the IDE
I haven't used it so I'm not sure whether the configuration persists through updates or not, but it certainly makes it easy to unlist boards.

Thanks, it worked. Had to trash the SAMD folder manually, as I need none of those boards and the plugin is not completely working if you deselect all boards in a category.

If you don't need any of the boards (and you aren't using a 3rd party platform that has it as a dependency), you can just remove the platform via Boards Manager:

  • Tools > Board > Boards Manager
  • Wait for the update to finish.
  • Scroll down through the list of available boards packages until you see "Arduino SAMD Boards (32-bits ARM Cortex-M0+)". Click on it.
  • Click the "Remove" button.
  • Wait for the removal to finish.
  • Click the "Close" button.

If you later get a SAMD board, you can always install the Arduino SAMD Boards package again by repeating the above instructions but clicking the "Install" button instead of "Remove.

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