Settings Explained

by Visual Micro 5. May 2012 08:04

The debugger was released May 2013 as an upgrade to standard Arduino plugin. The plugin is free, the debugger has an rrp of $49 but is currently being offered for approx. $15, includes 2 years of support and updates. A 30 day free trial is available in all versions of Visual Micro

The project properties window is available when the project is selected in the Visual Studio solution explorer. Properties in the "Micro Debug" section are only used if (Micro Debug) is enabled (see the example below). The properties are the Arduino debugging options that are available.

IMPORTANT WARNING - Enable Break/Pause causes the Arduino to STOP/WAIT when a breakable point in the source code is reached. You must only enable this option if you understand the consequences of the Arduino stopping and waiting for an F5 (continue) command. Further more, because the debug uses the serial port to communicate any transmission to the arduino serial port will cause the arduino to continue. REMOVE all propellers and consider the dangers of debug pause prior to using this feature! For this reason the default for this option is false (off) which forces all break points to become tracepoints regardless of their settings.

Jump To Source is automatically enabled when a pausable breakpoint is hit. This option forces jumping to source for all tracepoints so must be used with consideration to how fast visual studio can react. For example if we only trace when a sensor button is clicked or when a condition happens infrequently (such as every 20 seconds or longer) then this option can provide a useful animated view of the code that is being executed.

Remote Port enabled us to override the serial port that the debugger uses. By default it uses the main Arduino Serial port and initialises the port speed to 115k. You may optional override the speed of the port or both the speed and the port. This option might be useful if you already use the main serial port or if you want to manually initialise the debug port in the sketch setup() function.

Startup Message provides the ability to send a startup message from the arduino when it is in debug mode

Startup Wait is used in cojuntion with Enable Break/Pause and automatically forces the arduino to wait for F5 (continue) when it starts or resets. The Startup message is displayed in the trace then the Arduino will pause

Tip: Press F4 or "View>Properties Window" if the debugging properties are not displayed. The visibility and position of the project properties will be remebered when you re-start Visual Studio