ARDUINO VISUAL STUDIO (an arduino based VPL thats better than LIFA for labview)

Writing code takes a lot of skill to do, yet even with some experience, more complex codes can still prove to be a problem to write out and compile. There is a module in labview for interfacing with arduino, and its called LIFA(labview interface for arduino). Although this module can prove useful for complex coding, anything designed on it cant be uploaded to the arduino board and instead has to be controlled directly from labview.

Arduino visual studio would fix that problem. It would be a completely independant VPL designed specifically for uploading code to an arduino board. Basically, its icons would be somewhat similar to the basic programming icons on labview, such as arithmetic operations and loops. The difference, however, would be that these icons are all visual references to the code found on the arduino references page. This way, visually created code could be uploaded to the arduino board directly, instead of having to use a separate program to control the arduino's actions al-together. The functions on the arduino visual studio would greatly improve the simplicity of making more complex codes, yet still be much easier to use than labview. In addition to that, people wouldnt have to spend over $3000 for the labview program.

The first versions of arduino visual studio would probobly consist of basic functions referenced on the arduino reference page, but, if successful, could eventually grow to include actual simulation of the programs, and even have the ability to create and upload code from one giant program into several arduino microcontrollers for larger projects. There are lots of people who like to do things visually, but there isn't much visual programming software out there that allows the user to upload code onto microcontrollers. Any software that does, however, is usually extremely extensive and complicated, negating the significance of using a VPL to upload code to a microcontroller. With the arduino visual studio, the VPL would be focused solely on working with arduino's and similar microcontrollers, thus significantly simplifying the visual programming process. Such benefits would greatly increase arduino productivity and sales, thereby being a significant benefit to both Arduino.cc and its users.

This is only an idea, but with support it could become a reality.

I'm not a big fan of visual programming because it only allows you to do what the creator thought of which will never allow low-level work.

But then I'm a hard-core programmer from wayback, I can see advantages for beginners though.

Are you proposing to write such a thing?


Rob

unfortunately im no where near advanced enough to write such a code, although im pretty sure any one would a decent education would find it to be more than possible to make. Other than creating a visual interface, the code should be somewhat simplistic, as you're basically substituting icons for code. Although it might be harder than that, as im still a beginner.

Like http://blog.minibloq.org/ , you mean?

Well here is one free step in that direction along with a nice little arduino debugger upgrade in beta. If you would like to brainstorm this idea further we would love to be involved.

If you are interested please join our forum and add a discussion to the "Ideas" section. It's a great idea, it would be great to be able to see the code produced by each "block" and to be able to modify the source.

About Arduino for Visual Studio

Get a legal copy of Visual Studio Professional for free here

I've tried 'FlowCode' with the AVR NetIO board. Very easy to use.
The newest version is arduino-compatible afaik...

http://www.matrixmultimedia.com/flowcode.php