Suggestion about Serial Monitor: hex display

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Software Bugs & Suggestions
1

Hi,

I suggest to improve the serial monitor by displaying the HEX or Binary code received, in alternate or addition to the ASCII display.
This can be really useful to debug the transmitted code.

For example, I start to write a program to send control codes via serial connection to my iPod. Many of these codes are not ASCII prntable charachters, and I need an HEX visualization to understand if the right codes are transmitted.

Thanks

MZ

2

Useful idea, add my vote :slight_smile:

is http://realterm.sourceforge.net/ a solution?

3

is http://realterm.sourceforge.net/ a sollution?

Not for me, I'm a Mac OSX user?
Anyway, I prefer an embedded tool like Serial Monitor is.

MZ

4

Anyway, I prefer an embedded tool like Serial Monitor is.

Then it would be very nice if you brought out the compiler and add the feature. I'm certain, many people will thank you for it. It's always nice to meet people who help improve an open source product instead of just sitting there and waiting for other to do something.

Korman

5

it would be very nice if you brought out the compiler and add the feature

Unfortunately I don't know anything about Java programming?
If someone can help me to understand how to, I can try to add the feature :slight_smile:

MZ

6

Find the code that selects the font used in the serial monitor, and allow it to be changed to one of the hex display fonts (like "SexyHexy" (I kid you not)) This should be relatively easy even if you don't know java...

(this may be more difficult than I thought; in theory the font is already customizable via console.font in the preferences file, but setting that to SexyHexy doesn't seem to work. Perhaps java has a separate list of usable fonts, just like it seems to have its own idea about where to put tmp files...)

7

Find the code that selects the font used in the serial monitor, and allow it to be changed to one of the hex display fonts

Nice idea, I try to edit the Prefernce.txt file with no results.
What are the .jar files? Are compiled files or I can edit them in some way?
I cannot find any refernce to the serial monitor in the files I found, some suggestion where look into?

Thanks

MZ

8

Source code is in a git repository hosted at code.google.com. You will need a Java development environment. Instructions here: Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
I've made a couple patches, and I don't know java either :slight_smile:
The serial monitor ends up in ...Arduino/app/src/processing/src/SerialMonitor.java

One of the advantages of open source software is that large programs are much easier to "tweak" slightly than to write from scratch, so that even non-experts in a language can make useful changes to a program. I guess this can also be a disadvantage, with insufficient "governance."