Hi,

Your students needs to ensure the project is selected i the solution explorer before the properties will show. The vMicro>project properties command attempts to select the project then show the properties.

The properties window is a standard VS feature for every file. You see different properties depending on what is selected in the solution explorer so to say there are no properties is confusing. Even without Visual Micro there should still e some properties showing so please look into that to find the confusion.

Arduino doesn't have debug (not easily anyway) and the visual micro debugger uses Serial alongside a standard Arduino build so we would not expect to see any speed difference.

You havn't said which hardware you are using so I will assume AVR

The compiler properties are taken from the standard arduino system which you can see in arduinoide\hardware\arduino\avr\platform.txt

For example you can see this line in the file:-

compiler.cpp.flags=-c -g -Os {compiler.warning_flags} -std=gnu++11 -fpermissive -fno-exceptions -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-threadsafe-statics -MMD -flto
 

Notice that the optimization is hard coded so I am considering a "replacement" system that will switch out the -Os based on user selected optimization settings.

The issue is compounded because the arduino fails to build for most hardware with optimization switched off so I am considering providing different optimization settings for project/core and library compilation.

None of that helps you right now so I suggest editing the platform.txt then clicking "tools>visual Micro>reload toolchains" or restarting the ide.

Does that help?

Oh I see. Yes it's confusing in VS there are "Property Pages" and "Properties"

The property pages show as a dialog. The project properties show as a dockable tool window

Property Pages (Consider as read-only)

Microsoft for some reason unknown to me only show the Property Pages if at least one .cpp file is included in the project.

I am sure that is the confusion for students it confused me at first!

You should also know that not one property in the property pages affect the compilation of an arduino/gcc program. VS does not know about Arduino or Gcc and does not provide a compiler for it. Therefore Visual Micro uses the property pages ONLY to force intellisense to work.

Visual Micro entirely handles the build process based on the arduino definitions mentioned previous (platform.txt and also boards.txt) which is an alien system for Visual Studio (VS)

Project Properties - Property Window

Visual Micro provides a number of compiler and linker options via the Project Property (tool window) system. The Visual Micro project properties extend the Arduino build process in various small ways.

When a project is open in Visual Studio the vMicro menu shows a "Project Properties" command which actually just selects the project in the solution explorer and then automatically clicks the standard Visual Studio command View>Property Window.

If you take a look at the Visual Micro documentation index the "Project Properties" is available as a link which opens this page:-

http://www.visualmicro.com/page/User-Guide.aspx?doc=Project-Properties-Reference...

The page describes how to add macros and additional compiler switches. 

Be aware that manually adding -I include paths with a -I switch is not recommended because it will confuse less experienced users. This is because adding a -I switch simply adds an include path for the compiler but does not cause the .cpp files in the path to be compiled.


Compiler switches

I don't think adding an optimization compiler switch via Project Properties will have any effect because of what I said earlier about platform.txt but you can try. Otherwise you have to edit platfom.txt for your demo.

To see and understand more clearly what happens during an Arduino compile and to confirm if your Project Property overrides have been applied you can enable the vMicro>Compiler>Verbose option. To lean about all the Arduino build properties also switch on "vMicro>Compiler>Show Build Properties". These properties will give a verbose compiler output of the entire process.

Does this help?

Thanks!

Quote:


Maybe some inconsistency in the project creation routine. When you use File>Open>Arduino Project to open an existing project Visual Micro probably sets the .ino to be a C++ type. You can see and change the type of a file in the File Properties. 

The File properties work the same way as the Project Properties. When project properties are open you will see the properties change as you click between Project and .ino file in the solution explorer. So the same tool window simply shows properties for whatever is selected in the Solution Explorer.

Quote:


If vMicro>Automatic Debugging is enabled I would expect to see a difference in code size between Debug and Release. The difference depends on what the project code does.

The Visual Micro debugger has to inject Serial statements into a temp copy of the code prior to compilation. That's how the debugger works because Arduino doesn't have easy debug through normal means.

If the project does not use Serial then using the debugger will cause the memory to be used that Serial normally requires and will cause the compile and linker to use the parts of the Arduino core required for Serial communications such as HardwareSerial.cpp.

If the project already uses Serial the difference between Debug and Release will be significantly smaller.

If you see no difference at all between debug and release, and never see "Compiling Debug Versions of 'xyz'" then the debugger is either disabled or you are using the free version of Visual Micro.

If you follow the guide above to alter platform.txt and change the optimization from -Os to your preferences then use "tools>visual Micro>reload tool chains" then you should see a difference. If not then click "Build>clean solution"and then build again. the "clean" simply clears temp build files so you get a full compile but VM should detect the change to platform.txt.

You can also experiment with the extraFlags, extraCppFlags or extraElf2HexFlags etc.in the Visual Micro Project Properties as described above. 

As an aside, you can also set #defines in the properties based on configuration (release/debug) or globally for the project.

Oh yes good idea

By the way I tested the .ino file type =C++ today and the C++ options did not show.

Is it possible your test project had a c++ file in it at some point in the past that you have since deleted?I can only assume VS remembers that fact.