In the first part of this series, I pointed out a few low priority quirks found in the intial steps of walking through the xTIMEcomposer's tutorials. As we left off last time, I had noticed that a prerequisite for the sliceKIT's tutorial was to back up until I made my way though running a project (PWM) in the software environment. This article chronicles some minor issues with that process.
This time, I started with the "xTIMEcomposer Studio Tutorial". Although I did not find any problems with the first couple steps ("The xSOFTip Explorer Perspective", "Your first application"), I do have some minor annoyances to report. Certainly some room for improvement.
First, when choosing building blocks from the "xSOFTip" browser I would see the documentation auto-load into the Developer Column frames. This is a nice feature, but doing so removed the tutorial I was progressing through. Since the "back" arrow did not restore the last tutorial page seen, I had to traverse from the beginning of the tutorial back to the point I had left. I would think that the intended functionality is that clicking on a building block under "xSOFTip Browser" should create a new tab on the Developer Column rather than killing the in-progress tutorial.
Secondly, using the tutorial we are to implement the "Tutorial Example LED PWM Driver Component". Clicking on the component also updates the "My System Information" pane. The issue I have is with the "Possible devices" list. The list for the PWM Driver shows only one possible device: "L6-64 6 Core Microcontroller". Considering the tutorial has me target the sliceKIT Core Board (L16), this list of possible devices seems incorrect. At least it appears to be in conflict with the instructions.
Third, while navigating the xTIMEcomposer Studio Tutorial, I noticed that modal dialog boxes would prevent me from interacting with the tutorial help file. For example, while on the "Create a Project" step, I generated the project, selected a name, selected the target, then saw I should do something with tile[1].... However, the rest of the tutorial was obscured as I needed to scroll down further on the Developer Column. However, at this point the "Generate xTIMEcomposer Project" window had focus and would not allow interaction with parent windows. Therefore, as is the case with other previous steps (due to different annoyances) - I had to memorize the steps, back up/start over/scroll down/etc - and proceed.
Fourth, the "Editing the xSOFTip code" section seems to have pictures under each of the "CODE:SELECT ALL" boxes. When I click on the first blue text "Show where pwm_controller statement goes...", the text is replaced with "images/code_par.*". Apparently this is in error, as it should be replaced by picture. In contrast, the text under the next "CODE:SELECT ALL" box reads "Show where pwm_controller task goes..." and shows a picture when the blue text is clicked.
Also, after completing the "Using xSOFTip in the Edit perspective" step, the navigation icons show "Go to 'Your first application'" and "Restart this task". The issue is that previous steps would show an icon to proceed to the next step. In this case, "Go to 'Your first application'" is two steps back. I would have to think this is a cut-and-paste error of the tutorial author. To workaround the issue, I click on "Test your project in the simulator" listed under the top frame.
Note: the same issue exists after completing the "Test your project in the simulator" and "The xTIMEcomposer Waveform Viewer" tasks.
Now that I have completed the simulator tutorial, I'm back to the sliceKIT tutorials that I had previously started without first completing the PWM simulation tutorial. Therefore, my next step is to implement the PWM demo in actual hardware.
Happy designing and best wishes to success of your XMOS projects ...
Regards,
Jason Whiteman
http://www.xcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2247
xTIMEcomposer Unboxing Series: Part 1 - Getting Started