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Questions about how to use MariaMole (Problems, hints, difficulties, etc)
I could not import any Arduino examples
The project compiles correctly, but it's not uploaded to my board
When I try to compile the project, I receive an error message about an #include file
Is MariaMole compatible with the board XXXXX?
I have an project that compiles ok on Arduino IDE, but not on MariaMole
General questions about the tool development
So, why another Arduino IDE?
It's designed only for advanced users?
What does "MariaMole" means?
It's Open-source? It's free? Where can I get the code?
It's available for other platforms besides Windows?
Answers:
Questions about using MariaMole
I could not import any Arduino examples
The main reason for this is that MariaMole is not configured with the path for your Arduino install. Please check the steps at this tutorial to fix this
The project compiles correctly, but it's not uploaded to my board
This is usually caused by a wrong project configuration. Please, make sure you have selected the correct board, programmer and serial port at the Project Options window.
The protocol used by Arduino to upload your programs depends on the board you are using. So, if you set the wrong board, the wrong algorithm will be used, and the program won't be uploaded.
The programmer is also important. If you're NOT using an external programmer, i.e., you're using just the Arduino board directly connected to your PC via a USB cable, select the programmer called "AVR ISP"
When I try to compile the project, I receive an error message about an #include file
Sometimes MariaMole won't be able to import all the include files from an Arduino sketch or example. The Arduino IDE does some internal tricks to identify those files, so it's hard for MariaMole to deal with them sometimes.
But that's not problem: You can simple import these files into your project, or you can go to your project configuration window (Button on toolbar), then select "Advanced" and add the paths to these files, like in any other IDE.
Is MariaMole compatible with the board XXXXX?
There are a lot of other boards around there that uses the Arduino IDE. MariaMole uses the same configuration files as Arduino IDE, so it should get these boards configuration and deal with them automatically.
Unfortunately, as we're talking about hardware from several vendors, and without no mandatory standard adherence, there's no way I could assure this for any board. The only way to check this is by testing.
Sometimes it's hard to deal even with the oficial Arduino boards, because the IDE uses internal tricks to handle them. For example: There's a trick to uploading sketches to Leonardo that's not defined in any configuration file.
Sometimes using other boards is straigthforward. Sometimes you still have to perform some extra steps, like importing libraries or adding extra include paths to your project.
I have an project that compiles ok on Arduino IDE, but not on MariaMole
Read the question above: When I try to compile the project, I receive an error message about an #include file
This is probably the same problem. The best way to solve this is to configure MariaMole with the path to your header files. Fortunately, you just have to do this once for each project, and it will no longer bother you.
General questions about the tool
So, why another Arduino IDE?
Ok. I have no good answer for that, if you're asking this even after reading the feature list above. Sure, there's the original Arduino IDE, and several solutions based on Eclipse, Code::Blocks, NetBeans and other professional IDES. Why another one?
Well, the original Arduino IDE is great for beginners, but it lacks a lot of features that advanced users need. And I've tried a lot of other solutions. But all were based on plugins and hacks to other IDEs, which lead to not-so-good performance. For example, a very famous plugin provided access to terminal console by adding a fixed option to the IDE Tools menu. So, if you're working with two different boards, you have to change this hard-coded option every-time.
Of course, designing a new IDE it's not a trivial thing, and maybe these little annoyances were not enough to justify such work. But I didn't know that :), and I used my spare time, and I always wanted to create an IDE. So, here it is! :)
It's designed only for advanced users?
No! It follows some simple user-interface features from the Arduino IDE. The interface is very simple, and 99% of day-by-day functions can be reached by the small number of buttons on the main window. The only great difference in MariaMole interface, when compared with the original Arduino IDE, is the workspace tree at the left side of the Window.
But even the workspace is easy to understand. It's a tree representing your work area. Each project is a branch on this tree, and the files are sub-branches inside the projects.
What does "MariaMole" means?
Leterally, it means "Soft Mary" in Portuguese. MariaMole is the name of a very popular candy in Brazil. It's very similar to Marshmallow, but it takes egg-whites instead of corn-syrup.
It's Open-source? It's free? Where can I get the code?
Yes. You can get it at the project's SourceForge page. But it will be, probably, undocumented and ugly. I've joined a lot of pieces of code I had around here to build this beauty. I'm planning to get some time to improve this, but haven't managed to do it yet. But you can help, on the spirit of open-source :)
It's available for other platforms besides Windows?
Yes! But note that the main development is done on Windows. Linux releases depend on the work of brave volunteers that compile the code and generate the Linux install packages. So, they will, probably, be always some versions behind. If you're using Linux, I highly recommend downloading the source code and compiling the latest version by yourself.
If you're on Apple computers, you can also get the code and compile your own install. We still have no OSX developers working on this project