Need some guidance getting started with VS Code/nRF Connect

RE: Need some guidance getting started with VS Code/nRF Connect

Elfving — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 07:57:44 GMT

Great! That sounds like a plan!

[quote user="Mike Austin (LPI)"]its not working for me (kicks up an error about failing to launch a GDB Server: Error: spawn JLinkGDBServerCL.exe ENOENT)[/quote]

Hmm, that is weird. If you run into that issue again, go ahead and create another DevZone ticket for it. We prefer to keep the different issues separate so that they are easier to navigate for people later on.

[quote user="Mike Austin (LPI)"]its probably 12-24 hours before I can get a response that might set me on the right track[/quote]

Yeah, and that might be the case no matter where in the world you are. Though the majority of tech support are in the CET/CEST time zone, and we try to limit our response time to less than 24h.

Good luck with the tutorials!

Best regards,

Elfving

RE: Need some guidance getting started with VS Code/nRF Connect

Mike Austin (LPI) — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 04:59:13 GMT

Hi Elfving,

Thanks so much for your extensive reply. The DevZone is definitely a step up from what I'm used to with Cypress (they used to be great, but since Infineon took over, responses take weeks), so well done.

I'll have a look through those tutorials you sent the link for and see how much that clarifies for me.

I had stumbled across those YouTube series from Ali Aljaani, which were a great help. Although I did come unstuck with the debug session, and have still not worked out why its not working for me (kicks up an error about failing to launch a GDB Server: Error: spawn JLinkGDBServerCL.exe ENOENT).

I guess the issue is, whenever I come unstuck, being in the southern hemisphere, its probably 12-24 hours before I can get a response that might set me on the right track, which is really slowing me down. Hence why I was hoping there might be some "how to' resources out there I can tap into so I can fast track my progress a bit.

Anyway, I'll look into the information you've provided links to, see how far I get

Thanks again,

Mike

RE: Need some guidance getting started with VS Code/nRF Connect

Elfving — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 11:32:05 GMT

Hey Mike!

Yeah, I can imagine it being quite the learning curve if you aren't used to Zephyr and nRF Connect SDK. I guess it is somewhat assumed that you are in the majority of what we post. The nRF5 SDK is a bit different from NCS so it is good that you don't mix those two. Though the difference between VSC and Segger is mainly the IDE - you don't have to specifically look for tutorials for VSC if that is what you are planning to work with. And Visual Studio Code being a part of nRF Connect for Desktop is very new, so I would understand that you would have a hard time finding any beginner tutorials that are using it. There will be more of those eventually.

- This tutorial is a very beginner friendly resource, that explains how creating projects in NCS works. This also includes explaining the difficult terms such as West, Zephyr and Kconfig, that we might simply throw out there in other tutorials and posts on DevZone, without much of an explanation. This tutorial is like both your French textbook and dictionary. It focuses a bit on Segger, though that doesn't make it any less relevant. Everything mentioned in Segger has a counterpart in VSC. We will probably update this tutorial to show everything on VSC eventually.

- From there you might want to take a further look at peripherals and drivers. Here is a tutorial, and here is the essentially the same in a nice webinar format. It is in Segger, but still relevant for you.

- When it comes to VSC and how to use it, the video tutorials are the best things we have available at the moment.

- There are several more tutorials out there however, and a lot of documentation.

Btw, if you have a hard time getting up and running with anything, for instance controlling the LEDs, then opening a demo application and using that as a starting point is the recommended way to get going. That will for instance show you what configurations are needed and provide you with a lot of info with its documentation. There is a lot of a API to get a hang of in Zephyr. I should also mention that you can use the nrfx drivers in NCS as well, though I would recommend you to use the others.

I hope these resources help. One last resource that I hope you'll use, is our presence here on DevZone. Let us know if there is anything else we can help you with.

Best regards,

Elfving