Suggestions and Bugs

Topic last updated 18 Jan 2010, by Andrew Harpin

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Andrew Harpin

# 20 Nov 2009 . Edited: 06 Dec 2009

Just got my mbed today, thanks all working well.

Been playing around with the site, now I understand that this is early days and stuff may be on the cards anyway, but I have a few suggestions:

1. As the number of users grows the forum is going to be bombarded with posts, I would suggest we create some sub sections to break the forum up into relevant topics.

2. IDE could do with references to core files, I notice you have the mbed files, but the core files also support additional functions and definitions that users will probably need at some stage. One in particular is the core base types such as int, bool etc, every compiler has their own standard usually out of line with ANSI C/C++, this can be useful for noobs.

3. Following from above, an 'intellisense' clone would be nice (but not simple to implement I know).

4. I am a professional software engineer, one key feature you will notice of many IDE's is the ability to change colours for keywords and also the background colours, the site and the IDE are very white, which is hard on the eyes when you look at it for too long. Maybe a theme system or manual configuration?

5. You may want to make this thread a sticky and give other users opportunity to voice their opinions.

Replies

Dan Ros

# 20 Nov 2009

Some very good suggestions here. Have stickied this and hopefully we get some more suggestions!

Igor Skochinsky

# 20 Nov 2009

Here's some from me... some of them are more like bug reports but anyway...

"Subscribe to this topic" seems to be set now every time I post a reply, even though I did not check it.
Some explanation of what exactly "Subscribe to site update emails" in the profile means would be nice.
Opera support! Yeah I know multiple browsers are a pain but can you maybe at least look at the forum issues? (insert code doesn't work, need to hit "Back" twice to go up).
Preview button is gone? If you do bring it back, I think it would be better placed next to "Post reply" than in the toolbar.
Somehow distinguish mbed team guys from other users (e.g. username color, or a signature, or some text next to username etc.). You can sort of figure them out after browsing the blog and forums but it could be useful for the new people.
[IDE] "do" in UCam::doGetJpegPictureToFile gets highlighted as a keyword.
Since we're talking IDE customization, how about settings for the Format tool? E.g. I prefer opening braces on a separate line...

Vlad Cazan

# 20 Nov 2009 . Edited: 20 Nov 2009

Igor Skochinsky wrote:

"Subscribe to this topic" seems to be set now every time I post a reply, even though I did not check it.

This is very annoying, it did not do this in the past. Also it would be great to see a difference in read and unread forum posts.

Igor Skochinsky wrote:

Somehow distinguish mbed team guys from other users (e.g. username color, or a signature, or some text next to username etc.). You can sort of figure them out after browsing the blog and forums but it could be useful for the new people.

This is also a good idea, create some badges for developers, programmers, etc. This will let new users know who is replying to their topic. Also maybe a badge to show if a user is new.

Matthew Harrison

# 21 Nov 2009

I would love forum emails to be properly threaded. I don't read the forum directly from the web site, I subscribe by email.

Vlad Cazan

# 21 Nov 2009

Dan Would it be hard to write a simple piping program So that we can reply to forum notification emails and for them to be added to the forum as a reply. Much like modern support ticketing scrips. This would make a nice addiion

Dan Ros

# 22 Nov 2009 . Edited: 22 Nov 2009

Vlad Cazan wrote:
Dan Would it be hard to write a simple piping program So that we can reply to forum notification emails and for them to be added to the forum as a reply. Much like modern support ticketing scrips. This would make a nice addiion

Vlad, it's possible, sure. Not sure when or if the feature will be added though, as you have to be sure that the system positively authenticates any replies so we know who's username to post it under. Plus you have to keep the reply format (html, quotes, etc) consistent whether people reply from the forum or via email. A couple of people have asked about it though. So - not in the next update, but i'm not saying never :)

Dan Ros

# 22 Nov 2009 . Edited: 22 Nov 2009

Matthew Harrison wrote:

I would love forum emails to be properly threaded. I don't read the forum directly from the web site, I subscribe by email.

I use gmail which automatically does this, but I can probably add In-Reply-To headers to help other clients. What mail client do you use?

Dan Ros

# 22 Nov 2009 . Edited: 22 Nov 2009

Igor Skochinsky wrote:

Here's some from me... some of them are more like bug reports but anyway...

"Subscribe to this topic" seems to be set now every time I post a reply, even though I did not check it.

Some explanation of what exactly "Subscribe to site update emails" in the profile means would be nice.

Opera support! Yeah I know multiple browsers are a pain but can you maybe at least look at the forum issues? (insert code doesn't work, need to hit "Back" twice to go up).

Preview button is gone? If you do bring it back, I think it would be better placed next to "Post reply" than in the toolbar.

Somehow distinguish mbed team guys from other users (e.g. username color, or a signature, or some text next to username etc.). You can sort of figure them out after browsing the blog and forums but it could be useful for the new people.

[IDE] "do" in UCam::doGetJpegPictureToFile gets highlighted as a keyword.

Since we're talking IDE customization, how about settings for the Format tool? E.g. I prefer opening braces on a separate line...

Re emails - I'll make things clearer, and perhaps make auto-subscription optional.

The preview button isn't really needed, as what you see in the editor is what you will get in the post.

I will certainly have a look at opera issues with the forum - there's no reason why it shouldn't work.

Also, yes, there should be a better indication of mbed staff.

As for the IDE, it's not really my area, but surely if you have your own standards for code style, you already follow them, and therefore have no use for the format tool? ;)

Andrew Harpin

# 22 Nov 2009

The format could be useful when sharing code, everyone has their own coding style as you stated, but if they've imported shared/published code its useful to view in your prefered format

C P

# 24 Nov 2009

I would like to have sub folders in the compiler under the My Programs folder.

It would be very nice to group all lcd programs, http programs etc.

Matthew Harrison

# 26 Nov 2009

Dan Ros wrote:

Matthew Harrison wrote:

I would love forum emails to be properly threaded. I don't read the forum directly from the web site, I subscribe by email.

I use gmail which automatically does this, but I can probably add In-Reply-To headers to help other clients. What mail client do you use?

Thunderbird.

Andrew Harpin

# 27 Nov 2009

Few more:

6. Filters on activity for Notebook pages and published apps, the forum is easily accessable, but these are less so.

7. As has been mentioned folders in the program section.

8. Copying Files within the compiler

9. Capability to build our own libraries.

Alex Louden

# 05 Dec 2009

I would like to be able to select a block of text in the IDE by clicking the start of the block, holding down shift, and clicking the end. It's standard in most textboxes, but not the IDE?

Ability to hide/minimise blocks of code - like in Notepad++ or Dreamweaver. (I realise I could write the code there then copy it across, but that's not a very elegant solution, and defeats the purpose of having a seperate compiler)

I wouldn't mind helping out somehow, if you'd like a hand making site changes?

John McAdams

# 06 Dec 2009

IDE improvements I would like to see are (must have) simple refactorings (rename, move, etc.), (nice to have) custom code coloring, (must have) ability to pin/collapse workspace and output windows.

Program sharing improvments: Put them in SVN so we can version them and share the latest without having to repost a new URL. Plus this is 2009, we should be versionig our code, even if it is hobby code.

Like others here, I would be happy to help with these.

Stephane ROCHON

# 06 Dec 2009

On IDE, it would be great to support "exotic keyboards" like French. Whatever the browser (Chrome, Firefox or IE8), I can't enter the char "{" or "}" which is a bit annoying when writing C language ;-)

I can enter them in the forum, so it is really linked with the compiler interface. My work around at this time : ALT+0123 and ALT+0125 which works, hopefully because the first day I used CTR-C CTRL-V with existing { and }. It was slow to write.

Full list of unsupported keys : # { [ | `\ ^ @ ] }

Alex Louden

# 06 Dec 2009 . Edited: 06 Dec 2009

Ctrl+tab to un-indent would be nice. (Or another hotkey, if one doesn't exist?)

This has happened several times now - I think it's a bug. I've duplicated my program, deleted some tester code to publish, and both copies have had the code deleted.

Recreate: Save project1 as project2 (duplicate it). Make changes to project2, and project1 is changed also.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Simon Ford

# 06 Dec 2009

Hi Alex,

Alex Louden wrote:
This has happened several times now - I think it's a bug. I've duplicated my program, deleted some tester code to publish, and both copies have had the code deleted. Recreate: Save project1 as project2 (duplicate it). Make changes to project2, and project1 is changed also. Does this happen to anyone else?

Yes, this is a bug. It is on our fix-list for the next update.

Please keep these suggestions and bug reports coming! Note, the bugs will take priority, but we will aim to look at all the suggestions and perhaps take some polls about priorities and how they should be implemented.

Thanks again for taking the time to feedback,

Simon

Simon Ford

# 06 Dec 2009

Topic extended to include bugs, as one mans suggestion is another mans bug :)

Alex Louden

# 06 Dec 2009

Is the known bug list pubically viewable? (So we don't report known bugs, wasting everyone's time)

I can't seem to edit the comment I posted here

Simon Ford

# 06 Dec 2009

Alex Louden wrote:
Is the known bug list pubically viewable? (So we don't report known bugs, wasting everyone's time)

Sounds like a good suggestion! We'll add that to the currently non-public list :)

Igor Skochinsky

# 06 Dec 2009

Alex Louden wrote:

Ctrl+tab to un-indent would be nice. (Or another hotkey, if one doesn't exist?)

Shift-Tab works, but you need to select the fragment to unindent.

Andrew Harpin

# 06 Dec 2009

Igor Skochinsky wrote:

Alex Louden wrote:

Ctrl+tab to un-indent would be nice. (Or another hotkey, if one doesn't exist?)

Shift-Tab works, but you need to select the fragment to unindent.

Shift-Tab is the default in windows, can't say for other platforms.

Alex Louden

# 06 Dec 2009

My mistake - I originally wrote Shift-Tab, and then edited my post to say Ctrl. Not sure what I was thinking. Sorry guys!

Dan Ros

# 07 Dec 2009

As requested, I have created a public ticket tracker.

On it you will be able to check the status of your pet peeves and wishlist items, and report new issues.

The ticket tracker will cover all of mbed, from the website and the online compiler, to the mbed libraries. It has yet to be fully populated with all the known reported bugs so far, but everyone is more than welcome to add new bug reports to the tracker.

You can find the ticket tracker here.

Alex Louden

# 09 Dec 2009 . Edited: 09 Dec 2009

Time zone drop down box in profile?

I can't tell the difference between "30 minutes ago" and "today, 13:42". (It's 23:41 here)

Andrew Harpin

# 09 Dec 2009

10. Change the way links are added on the forum, text entry then selection is a little confusing.

Dan Ros

# 09 Dec 2009

Alex Louden wrote:

Time zone drop down box in profile?

I can't tell the difference between "30 minutes ago" and "today, 13:42". (It's 23:41 here)

Very good suggestion. Will try and get this into the next version.

Ian Phillips

# moments ago

As far as I can see there is no information about the connection of the on-board LEDs (LED1-4) to pins on the mbed itself. (It seems from the pwm example the LEDs are connected to some of the PWM pins).

Igor Skochinsky

# 10 Dec 2009

See here.

// Other mbed Pin Names
, LED1 = P1_18
, LED2 = P1_20
, LED3 = P1_21
, LED4 = P1_23
, USBTX = P0_2
, USBRX = P0_3

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