Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

Rafig — Sun, 05 Dec 2021 11:58:49 GMT

Hi, I made a video tutorial for using VS Code with nRF5 SDK(with SEGGER RTT logs shown inside VSC), maybe you can find it useful. But it uses cortex-debug extension. Here is the link:

nRF5 SDK Visual Studio Code Integration

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

Mikkael — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 14:28:58 GMT

Well, it's easy to get the ten included samples work. But how do I get the Nordic SDK examples work?

There has to be a way to compile them as they exist in:

C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\VisualGDB\EmbeddedBSPs\arm-eabi\com.sysprogs.arm.nordic.nrf5x\nRF5x\examples\peripheral\twi_sensor

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

matsublox — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 13:50:07 GMT

I really urge you do do the same for nRF52. A lot of people has started to develop on this new platform and would benefit from VisualGDB support as quick as possible as it is a great tool. We are already using it for many other platforms including the nRF51.

It would be very helpful!

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

Johann — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 16:28:07 GMT

Which Nordic SDK is currently included with VisualGDB? If it's not the most recent, is there a plan to provide the most recent SDK (9.x.x as of today)?

Thanks!

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

Martijn — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 16:06:02 GMT

for those of you who noticed the hardware registers for timer1, timer2, rtc1, spi1, and twi1 are missing when you download the nrf51 bsp. I updated the list with all peripherals. just replace the file in 'C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VisualGDB\EmbeddedBSPs\arm-eabi\com.sysprogs.arm.nordic.nrf5x\nRF51\DeviceDefinitions\nRF51.xml.gz' with nRF51.xml.gz

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

ivan — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:14:03 GMT

Strange, the reply to last comment got posted in front of the other comments, perhaps there's a bug in the commenting engine?

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

ivan — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:12:37 GMT

Thanks for the kind words Einar, we did our best to create a really intuitive tool. Regarding your questions:

VisualGDB can automatically manage Nordic libraries because the Nordic SDK version that is installed with VisualGDB has matching XML files defining the location of examples and libraries in the SDK. If Nordic releases a new SDK, we would need to recheck all the paths and update our XML files to that VisualGDB can manage everything automatically. On the other hand, if Nordic guys could include a few small XML files with their SDK (and run our BSP validator tool to check for broken paths), VisualGDB could work with that SDK without any further modifications.
VisualGDB generates self-contained GNU Make files, so you can open a VisualGDB project on any machine that has GNU Make and the ARM Compiler and build it via command line.
VisualGDB is not only ready for serious commercial development, but it is already widely used by many companies around the globe to develop code for platforms like STM32 and Linux-based devices like Raspberry Pi. Now that we have added the nRF51 package, all that functionality became available for the developers using Nordic devices. The way to convince someone to use VisualGDB really depends on their profile and expectations. Developers familiar with Visual Studio typically find other embedded IDEs less functional and seeing the out-of-the-box support for their platform is usually convincing enough. Those who are not familiar with the advantages of VS could find an overview of Debugging features and IntelliSense features quite compelling.
Regarding nRF52, we will observe its popularity compared to nRF51 and extend our package once the popularity becomes comparable. Unless someone from the community would like to extend it earlier (our tool that scans the SDK and generates the XML files is open-source and available on GitHub)

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

Einar Thorsrud — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 12:09:14 GMT

This is very promising. I used 5 minutes to follow the guide and the first example I tested worked smoothly. The IntelliSense is brilliant, and the debugger is indeed very intuitive. The other nRF51 tutorials on your website are also good.

After playing with VisualGDB today I have a few questions:

Is it possible to specify SDK version manually? Preferably it should be possible to point to any directory where I have installed the vanilla SDK downloaded from Nordic.
Is it straight forward to combine using Visual Studio with VisualGDB and building / debugging from the command line using the same Makefiles etc.?
Would you say VisualGDB is ready to be used for serious commercial development for the nRF51 target? If not, what is missing? And if yes, how can you convince someone about to start a project to use VisualGDB?
Do you have plans to add support for the nRF52?

Best regards, Einar

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

ivan — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:07:05 GMT

The main advantage of Visual Studio is much better IntelliSense. VisualGDB projects for devices like nRF51 use Clang-based IntelliSense that can automate things like create-from-use and quickly navigate through the manufacturer's libraries using Code Map.

It also has a more intuitive debugger that makes it very easy to just hover the mouse over a variable and quickly explore its contents in depth. One other thing would be support for numerous third-party plugins (e.g. IDE integration with SVN or Git).

RE: Developing Nordic nRF51 Projects with Visual Studio

MANGO — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 13:27:05 GMT

Wow cool!! I never knew developers can work with Visual Studio for their embedded projects.

In your experience, what IDE do you prefer?

This Visual Studio, Keil uVision, IAR, or etc.?

It is just a matter of preference, but I'm curious what's the pros for using Visual Studio.

-Best Regards, Mango922