Hello,
As some of you are aware, I am much more experienced with developing computer software than calculator software. Hell, I get paid to write computer software . Anyway, after the release of TI Developer, there was quite a lot of discussion around the need for a new IDE, and I was convinced to write one. So, I'm announcing tiDE, an IDE for developing calculator programs for all calculator platforms, including the Nspire and TI-Basic programs. It will include an integrated debugger that I will write (based on Stetson), which will allow you to debug code in a similar manner to the way you would use Visual Studio, for anyone familiar with that. tiDE will also have its own assembler that I will write from scratch, and this will be the biggest push for people to use it: tiDE's assembler will have loose syntax. This means that you will not have to re-learn assembly to use it. For instance, all of the following would be valid:
Code: db 0A2h
.db 0A2h
db $A2
.db $A2
tiDE will support the same syntax as all of the following: TASM, ZDS, Spasm, and Brass. Let me know if there are any major assemblers I missed.
As long as it properly assembles anything that Brass assembles (particularly Brass' excellent abilities with Applications), I'd be happy to give it a try. The IDE would have to be quite excellent to replace my current Notepad++ / command window / WabbitEmu system, though.
I started working on tiDE earlier today, and currently, the GUI is almost complete. I am about to start work on the assembler. Here is what the GUI currently looks like:
(Click me)
Looks nice so far, but I'd like tab guides (vertical gray dotted lines at each tab point on the left, just like Notepad++), find, find/replace, and find in files from the taskbar (do you already support find, find/replace, and goto line number?). Do you have a button to launch the emulator directly from the editor?
KermMartian wrote:
Looks nice so far, but I'd like tab guides (vertical gray dotted lines at each tab point on the left, just like Notepad++), find, find/replace, and find in files from the taskbar (do you already support find, find/replace, and goto line number?). Do you have a button to launch the emulator directly from the editor?
I'll look into the tab guides, could you find a screenshot for me?
Find/replace is not done, the only thing implemented at this point is GUI.
tiDE will use its own emulator that I will write, because it will have integrated debugging similar to Visual Studio.
Language=C# \ GUI Library=.NET
This is poached from someone else's website, but this is what I was talking about:
Ah! That looks hideous!
, but I won't be implementing that. I will have something that should accomplish the same goal, though
SirCmpwn wrote:
Ah! That looks hideous!
, but I won't be implementing that. I will have something that should accomplish the same goal, though
Update
I worked on tiDE quite a bit on the flight over, and it now supports no-argument commands in Tasm, ZDS, Brass3, and Spasm format, as well as decimal, binary, and hexadecimal conversion, although you cannot use these values in code yet.
SirCmpwn wrote:
Update
I worked on tiDE quite a bit on the flight over, and it now supports no-argument commands in Tasm, ZDS, Brass3, and Spasm format, as well as decimal, binary, and hexadecimal conversion, although you cannot use these values in code yet.
By no-argument commands, you mean things like nop and halt and ret? Congrats! Also glad to hear that you have directives under way.
Yes, I mean commands that the user cannot add their own things to. LD, for instance, does not work, but RET does.
And assembler directives are working, yes, but only a few. Right now I have list, nolist, include, and org working.
Right now, two passes are run. The first pass takes out the labels, counts the code, and gathers a nice list of user defined labels and their addresses. It also removes comments.
The second pass actually assembles the code, and produces an output.
The assembler, emulator, and IDE are all being written in seperate projects, and can all be pulled into a different project when the source code is released, if anyone was interested.
Kllrnohj wrote:
Language? GUI library?
SirCmpwn wrote:
The assembler, emulator, and IDE are all being written in seperate [sic] projects, and can all be pulled into a different project when the source code is released, if anyone was interested.
Wait, you're going to write an emulator too? I missed that part; what are your objections to WabbitEmu and the other existing emulators?
I'm making an integrated debugger similar to Visual Studio, which I cannot do with a 3rd party emulator.
SirCmpwn wrote:
I'm making an integrated debugger similar to Visual Studio, which I cannot do with a 3<sup>rd</sup> party emulator.
Yeah that would also make more sense because then you wouldn't need to go through the hassle to get the rights to use it as your own.
But back on topic... This sounds superb. I agree that the Tab feature is a good idea. Also, I would suggest that you also include an in-program homepage similar to those used in Visual Studios. This way it would be simpler to open recently used projects.
Just my input, but like I said, it sounds great.
Good idea. Let me make that feature really quick, it won't be hard.
Alright thanks. It'll save me a lot of time on those days when you don't want to wait 10 minutes to open the file.
