Hi,

You don't need to mess about changing any lib code.

The arduino ide 1.5 beta has gone through a number of changes with libraries in terms of search path order and structure. let's first understand the issue...

1) What #imports do you have in your sketch
2) Please switch on file>preferences>verbose compile in the arduino ide. Then post the build output.

Thanks

edit: I am not sure what good would using the hex from the arduino ide do? However I can say we will resolve this quite easily. Looking forward to the additional info requested above. thanks

Thanks for the info.

I will look at it in more detail shortly but need the following.

1)
The visual micro output you posted was not made after clicking "build>clean solution" which means that most of the build detail is missing because a previously cached version was used.

2)
I assume you are saying that DebugUtils.h is only required when you build in the arduino ide?

3)
Please try prefixing the lib names with the name of the library folder they relate to. You don't need this ongoing but a useful test.

#include "FastLED/FastLED.h"
..EEPROMEx/EEPROMEx.h
..DebugUtils/DebugUtils.h
..Wire/Wire.h
..Adafruit_MCP23017/Adafruit_MCP23017.h
..Adafruit_MCP23017/Adafruit_RGBLCDShield.h
 

In my example I might have used the wrong folder names. Please check them thanks. please send the new vm build output prior to prefixing library includes

Thanks very much for sending all the info especially the sketch.ino which shows the issue.

This is not something you have configured incorrectly, arduino libraries have a few abnormalities which have changed throughout their various application versions, especially between arduino 1.5>1.5.3 and again within 1.5.4+. These issues are normally related to libraries that don't contain a .h of the same name. Notice that paths are not specified int he code for arduino libraries so conflicting names within different libraries are more difficult to resolve in the case of libraries without [libraryname.h] files. It can be difficult to know which library users are hoping to use.

In this case this is not the issue. The issue is that Visual Micro believes that the LiquidCrystal_I2C needs to be used. In your sketch code the LCD.h and LiquidCrystal_I2C.h libraries are included but within conditional #if statements like this ...

#elif (LCD_CONFIG == LCD_GENERIC_I2C)
  // Using DFRobot or other cheap Chinese generic backpack
  #include <LCD.h>
	#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h> 

Historically Arduino has attempted to compile the libraries regardless of their "condition" in the code. This is because of the way Arduino finds #included libraries from within the code, it uses regex (string splitting) expressions before the compile.

From your report, it sounds like the Arduino Ide team have managed to workout which libs are actually included ignoring ones within invalid #if statements. We can also see in the verbose build from the arduino ide that it has not attempted to compile the lcd or i2 libraries. 

I guess they are now looking at compiler defines within the regex lib filtering but without more exploration I can not be sure.

It certainly explains a few things and I will look, at the weekend, how the arduino ide can be ignoring these includes. I must have missed this change on the arduino dev forum.

Thanks very much for such complete answers, it's a real time saver for me. I'll post with a new release over the next week or so.

OK, Tim, so at this point I have to include the paths with the 3rd party libraries to get it to compile in Visual Micro, and take them back out to get it to compile in the Arduino IDE.

I'm currently working on a shared project with someone else right now so that's a pain in the butt.  Is there a compiler definition or an environment variable exclusive to Visual Micro so I could do something like:

#if defined (__VISUAL_MICRO__)
#include <Wire/Wire.h>
#else
#include <Wire.h>
#endif 

You were close, but not quite.  Problem was Adafruit_MCP23017 library.  I now have it working / compiling in both environments:

Removed folder name from FastLED, Wire, and EEPROMEx library #includes.

Removed folder name from Adafruit_RGBLCDShield.h #include.

Kept folder name for Adafruit_MCP23017.h library which is actually in the Adafruit_RGBLCDShield folder.

Tried moving the Adafruit_MCP23017.h library to it's own folder with a matching name, but that didn't work.

Also Note: There WAS a LiquidCrystal library in the libraries folder in the Arduino IDE folder.  It must have come with the IDE.  Only other library in there was the SD lib.  There was an older version in Skecthes\Arduio\libraries.  Moved the newer LiquidCrystal and SD libraries out of I:\Arduino\libraries and into I:\Sketches\Arduino\libraries.

So I'm good-to-go at this point, at least for now!

The problem appears only to be with the Adafruit_RGBLCDShield library, and apparently only because it in turn uses the Adafruit_MCP23017 library, which is in the same folder as RGBLCDShield.  So the question is: Why does it compile without the path in the Arduino IDE and not in Visual Micro's?

Something to do with #includes and path searching...

Okay! So while arduino libraries often suffer from various minor issues everything I have said is rubbish in this case and I think I've wasted your time.

Please try the latest visual micro beta http://www.visualmicro.com/downloads/beta/arduinoforvisualstudio.msi

I found an issue in the build process in the way new format arduino libraries were being copied to the temp builder folder. All new format root library sources were incorrectly copied to buildFolder\src instead of buildFolder\libraryName. 

nb: With new format libraries you will see the sources of new format libraries, such as liquidcrystal, are located in \LIbraries\LibraryName\Src

I also found that the visual micro menu "Project>Show sketch core and library sources" wasn't working correctly for new format libraries. This is not a crucial visual micro feature but it does help to clearly show where library sources are resolved from. This is especially useful with libraries like the adafruit_RGBLCDShield which also contains LiquidCrystal.cpp/.h files.

As an aside, I tested arduino 1.5.8 and 1.5.2. 1.5.8 resolves libraries in the sketchbook/libraries folder in preference to libraries of the same name in the "ide/libraries" folder.

Thanks very much for putting so much effort into this!

The beta will be the official release during the next week but for now, when it runs for the first time, a message will be appear informing you of an update being available. please ignore the message.

Thanks for the info. Good luck when you do get to Eclipse

Did you try the latest Visual Micro beta? Did it resolve the issue with your standard setup?

Thanks.

Out of interest does your sketch #include EEPROM or EEPROMex

Thanks

Sorry to hear that.

As I said earlier, there have been major changes to how Arduino works in the beta 1.5 since 1.5.2. 

Unfortunately it's always been a hti and miss area for arduino because of the lack of path name against lib files. Many users had the issue of the wrong files being resolved so a new slightly improved set of rules were created by the arduino dev team but the eeprom.h in the eepromex folder will cause the compilers to think the eeprom library needs to be included in the compile.

The order of the includes is also important, forcing the files in certain libraries to be resolved first. This is true for visual micro and I suspect for the arduino ide.

So you might resolve the issue by moving #include <eeprom.h> to below #include <eepromex.h>