3rd Party Board JSON not working

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1

Hi Guys,

I am trying to make a custom boards JSON for Arduino 1.6.8 IDE however anything I try doesn't seem to work.

Is anyone able to provide me some guidance on why it might not work?

Below is my JSON file

{
  "packages": [
    {
      "name": "test",
      "maintainer": "semaja2net",
      "websiteURL": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/ard-core13/",
      "email": "attiny@semaja2.net",
      "help": {
        "online": "http://semaja2.net"
      },
      "platforms": [
        {
          "name": "Test Boards",
          "architecture": "avr",
          "version": "1.0.2",
          "category": "Contributed",
          "help": {
            "online": "http://semaja2.net"
          },
          "url": "http://files.semaja2.net/attiny13.zip",
          "archiveFileName": "attiny13.zip",
          "checksum": "SHA-256:61e70ba2917b309c4a3a2a9c348fb079a9c51d8052ea37ae57506c7ff07de340",
          "size": "16749",
          "boards": [
            {
              "name": "Test"
            }
          ],
          "toolsDependencies": [
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "avr-gcc",
              "version": "4.8.1-arduino5"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "avrdude",
              "version": "6.0.1-arduino5"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
2

Is anyone able to provide me some guidance on why it might not work?

It is probably because you are doing something wrong.

You did something. You didn't way what.
You expected something to happen. You didn't say what.
Something actually happened. You didn't say what.

Below is my JSON file

You didn't even get that right. Your JSON file is not below. What is below is some URL that isn't even clickable. Even if it were, I'm not going there. There IS a mechanism, incredibly simple to use, to post your files HERE.

3

I have update the post to simply include the code since that seems to be an issue for some people...

Anyway basically I am trying to make a board JSON to allow for easy installation of the board into 1.6

As far as I can see my JSON matches the specifications but nothing is working, no errors are logged, no boards are added to the list in the IDE

The only thing I can see is the JSON is cached in the ~\Library\Arduino15\ folder, which matches the JSON it is downloading which confirms the connection is working but likely a parsing issue in the JSON/IDE

4

Try this:

{
  "packages": [
    {
      "name": "test",
      "maintainer": "semaja2net",
      "websiteURL": "https://sourceforge.net/projects/ard-core13/",
      "email": "attiny@semaja2.net",
      "help": {
        "online": "http://semaja2.net"
      },
      "platforms": [
        {
          "name": "Test Boards",
          "architecture": "avr",
          "version": "1.0.2",
          "category": "Contributed",
          "help": {
            "online": "http://semaja2.net"
          },
          "url": "http://files.semaja2.net/attiny13.zip",
          "archiveFileName": "attiny13.zip",
          "checksum": "SHA-256:61e70ba2917b309c4a3a2a9c348fb079a9c51d8052ea37ae57506c7ff07de340",
          "size": "16749",
          "boards": [
            {
              "name": "Test"
            }
          ],
          "toolsDependencies": [
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "avr-gcc",
              "version": "4.8.1-arduino5"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "avrdude",
              "version": "6.0.1-arduino5"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "tools": [
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Cheers!

5

kowalski:
Try this:

Cheers!

Unfortunately still not working :frowning: does anyone know if there are any logs for the IDE that might give a clue why its failing?

6

Hum, what are you doing wrong?

My modification makes it at least show up in the Boards Manager. Did you forget this step?

Cheers!

7

these tool may helps to validate and analyse JSON data such as http://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer and http://jsonformatter.org

8

kowalski:
Hum, what are you doing wrong?

My modification makes it at least show up in the Boards Manager. Did you forget this step?

Cheers!

I just attempted it in the Windows IDE as well with no joy, all I am doing is putting http://files.semaja2.net/attiny13.json into the "Additional Boards URL" section

Do you have an online copy of yours that I can try? I suspect something about the file formatting could be causing the issues?

9

semaja2:
I just attempted it in the Windows IDE as well with no joy, all I am doing is putting http://files.semaja2.net/attiny13.json into the "Additional Boards URL" section

From Arduino IDE 1.6.x package_index.json format specification · arduino/Arduino Wiki · GitHub

The file must be named as follows:

package_YOURNAME_PACKAGENAME_index.json

The prefix package_ and the postfix _index.json are mandatory (otherwise the index file is not recognised by the IDE)

So you would need to change the filename for it to work.

10

pert:
From Create new page · arduino/Arduino Wiki · GitHub you would need to change the filename for it to work.

Thanks that was it!

http://files.semaja2.net/package_semaja2net_attiny13_index.json -- works fine now :slight_smile: