3 ideas for FC

[MJU20]

As posted in a previous topic, I've spend many hours (<10!) to find out why my project -that I successfully compiled earlier-, didn't work.
My only guess is that it had to do with an upgrade of a component.
The problems started after an component library update and was hard to find because I've upgraded the ESP32 toolchain at the same time.

Sor here are a few idea's for new features in FC.

1- Store the version of the component that was used at that time in a log file.
I use a display in many projects and after upgrading the component library this component became corrupt.
If we could read a log of at what moment, which version of that component compiled successful, we could draw conclusions.

2- Make older versions of components available.
If we could go back to an earlier version of a component, we can try and compile the project with a component that was working at a certain time.
Make it possible to roll back to an earlier version if the latest version has problems.

3- Copy/paste component properties
I use a devboard that is lying around my desk all the time with hardware connected all the time.
If a project works I make it permanent and more solid by using PCB or other.
But for each new project I need to manually configure the component setting in FC.
Wouldn't it be a nice feature to store the component (export) settings (as like a personal, favourite) in a file?
This file could the be pasted (imported) in each new project that uses this component.
-- An example: my ILI9343 SPI component uses 8 wires to the controller. 1 mistake and this doesn't work anymore.
If I could store the working version of the component settings, at a later project I import these settings and I'm up and running

If you're vibing with these ideas, show some love in this topic!

[kersing]

Please don’t use yellow text. That’s unreadable for people using the light theme on the forum…

In like the suggestions!

[medelec35]

Hello.
Thank you for the ideas.

2- Make older versions of components available.

That is already a feature.
See this Wiki page.

3- Copy/paste component properties

There is Property Manager component within Runtime tools.
I will look into suitability for your Application.

[Steve-Matrix]

Great suggestions, thanks for posting.

As Martin has said, (2) is already available. And I like the idea of (3).

For (1), extended info about each component is available within the generated C code file (and this includes subcomponents that are embedded within the top-level components). Using version control you could save/commit your project files (fcfx, c, hex) whenever you make a new significant version and then go back to these older projects whenever you like.

Flowcode's "user tools" allows external software (such as version control software) to be accessed and controlled from within Flowcode itself.

I find version control software essential to maintain my coding projects (including the Flowcode software itself) and use it occasionally to document and maintain versions of Flowcode-based projects and apps.

There are lots of options for version-control software. Git is one, as is SVN or Mercurial. If you mainly use Windows, you can use Tortoise to make it easier to use within Windows Explorer.

[MJU20]

Thanks for your positive response (all of you!).

I have GIT installed on my PC (because of the ESP-IDF), but never used it for anything else.
Could someone help to make GIT store "snapshots" of my FC components at certain times?

I use Fusion 360 a lot and my absolute main feature in this program is the timeline.

timeline.jpg (19.36 KiB) Viewed 258 times

This is a feature that shows a icon for every change that is made in a project.
With this you can easily go back to a certain state (not using the undo command), and/or edit a change in the past.
This would make FC a killer program.

But if someone could help me configure GIT to store a version of my project (local), this would help me a lot..

The other suggestions I need to investigate somewhat further..

[chipfryer27]

Hi

Usually I just save a copy at key points with a brief description. However as FC can automatically create a backup every x-seconds (Global Settings > Application), which overwrites previous, maybe an option to overwrite and if not checked it creates a "new" timestamped backup file ? Obviously you wouldn't want it saving every 30-seconds though.....

Regards

[MJU20]

Hi

Usually I just save a copy at key points with a brief description. However as FC can automatically create a backup every x-seconds (Global Settings > Application), which overwrites previous, maybe an option to overwrite and if not checked it creates a "new" timestamped backup file ? Obviously you wouldn't want it saving every 30-seconds though.....

Regards

Great suggestion, my trigger to look at this menu since a long time.
But, for me, a backup every ... sec is rather useless.
If I'm working on a project it might well be that I keep it open for hours without changing something.
If the project keeps backup every 90 seconds, things might be the same as the previous 200 backups.

The trigger to backup would be better after certain events?