Install via Board manager

[beriberikix]

With the 1.6.2 IDE release, there is now a way to download new boards directly. Will this implementation be able to support the manager? It would be nice to be able to use a single IDE rather than a fork.

[per1234]

I don't think you can install via Boards Manager, but this claims to allow you to use ESP8266 with the stock Arduino IDE. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/arduino-esp8266/

[igrr]

@beriberikix Ultimately, that is the plan. But right now the board manager does not support installation from a .zip archive. The list of available boards gets downloaded from Arduino.cc servers. So we need to get listed there, which requires us to do some talking... But we will get there, eventually.

For now I will add a release archive packaged for installation to the user's hardware folder.

[beriberikix]

👍

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

I'm looking at how to do the installation via IDE 1.6.2 This is a very new feature

At the moment I can't see a way to add external repo's to the boards manager, it only seems to show the official Arduino boards.

Does either of you know where it gets the list from or what the package for the board needs to look like ?

It appears to download multiple files e.g. the core and the tools seem to be separate

I guess I could read the Java to try to work out if there is a way to patch in additional boards e.g. by updating an XML somewhere ??

[igrr]

IDE downloads the list of platforms from the following URL:
http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json
(that's in arduino-core/src/cc/arduino/contributions/packages/ContributionInstaller.java)

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

Thanks

This change has broken my STM32 repo :-( :-(

Just trying to fix it now

because my STM32 repo relies on the ATM compilor used to the DUE to be installed

The latest version of 1.6.2 release yesterday (or perhaps today) has moved the compilors to

%appdata%/Arduino15

So my compile recipe for STM32
{runtime.ide.path}/hardware/tools/{build.gcc_ver}/bin/

No longer works

I will need to find the new equivalents to {runtime.ide.path} for Due

This won't effect ESP8266 as the tools are in the hardware folder

Perhaps this change is a result of the internal dispute between Arduino LLC and the board manufacturing side of the business

Either way, it will break a lot of things that use the IDE :-(

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

OK

I did some more research, and the package data gets downloaded from Arduino.cc every time the popup is opened :-(

There is no way to just modify / patch the package file, as it gets overwritten (I have tried )

The Boards Manager needs a new feature

I don't know if Arduino.lcc developers will allow a feature to add external sources

However, even if they don't want to add it, I think we should

I have forked the main Arduino IDE repo and cloned it to my local machine

I will investigate how to add a feature where the Boards Manager can have multiple package data files from multiple external locations

If Arduino Won't add this via pull request, we should add this, and I will tell anyone using my STM32 hardware files etc, to use esp8266/arduino

However really we need to removed the esp8266 etc stuff from the release and add it as a separate package file, i.e may need to fork the repo and have another one that just contains the hardware cores files, taken as a sub project of this main repo ???

[igrr]

I think the idea was to allow only some "verified" cores to be installed via Board Manager.
So you really need to get listed by Arduino.cc if you want your core to be installed this way.

Also it's not entirely clear to me why we need to split the repository? We can very well create whatever package necessary from this one without all the forking and submodules.

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

Ivan.

OK. But basically that just won't happen.

I've found it very had to get any STM32 specific stuff into any of the core libraries.

e.g. Paul Stoffregen who is one of the lead developers on the Arduino IDE team ( https://github.com/PaulStoffregen ) won't even action a pull request to add generic support to the One Wire library (which isn't even specific to the STM32)

So I think the chances of anyone getting their repo added to the list is unlikely, unless they are for example Expressif or MicroChip or ST themselves

One other person has replied to my posting on the IDE developers mailing list asking for the same thing, but as this change has only happened in the last 2 or 3 days, I don't think a lot of people have noticed
e.g. there are a lot of boards which rely on the ARM compiler being installed (which is no longer is), and even the AVR boards e.g Mega1280p will have issues because the AVR compiler is no longer in the Program Files (x86) hardware folder, its in the AppData folder

I've re-activated a thread on the Arduino forum for Mega1280p users to alert them, and there is also another thread about the new library manager - which is basically along the same lines

So perhaps over the next few days, more people will contribute

PS. Sorry, I've not be able to update my binaries (long story, but I have an internet data quota per month, and I only have a small amount left - so I don't have enough quota to upload the new binaries :-( )

I should really remove them and use the distribution system instead, but I've been very busy with the Board Manager thing this morning, and this afternoon I've had repairs to do on my house ;-)

If I can find a copy of JDK on a CDI will attempt to build the IDE from source, and look at adding new packages etc

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

Edit

Sorry. Re packages

Looks like the tools and the hardware folders are in separate zips

I may try turning off my internet so that the IDE can't update the package description, and then use a local web server to test how to build the zips

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

See arduino/Arduino#2856
You may want to chip in and add a call for the Board Manager to support external sources

[rogerclarkmelbourne]

Ivan

I did a bit of testing, by changing my hosts file to prevent the IDE updating the package file

And I can get it to install a new hardware files, but I have not tried to get the tools working yet,

One issue I did encounter is that the checksum in the package Must be lower case.
When I used QuickHash to generate the hashes, the Board manager reported that there was a CRC error, but I tracked it down to not supporting upper case, which frankly is a bug.

I did have success by adding a new block of data inside the first json array item (which is arduino products), but when I tried to add a separate section e.g. at the top level in packages, I get an error because the IDE can't access the Internet

I'm not sure if the error is really because it can't contact the Internet, or if I have made a mistake with the package structure.

I will continue tomorrow as its getting too late for me to continue today.