FLProg is an alternative Arduino programming environment. Project Description

In a previous post, I talked about the background history of the FLProg project. Now I want to talk in more detail about the project and its state to date.
The main goal of the project is to include people unfamiliar with programming in the circle of users of the Arduino boards. This is possible thanks to the experience of industrial programming, which has been accumulated over the years by manufacturers of industrial controllers.
The project consists of two parts. The first part is the desktop FLProg application, which is a graphical programming environment for Arduino boards. Secondly, this is the FLProg.ru website, through which members of the user community of the program can communicate with each other, find out the latest project news, download the latest version of the program, and find the necessary information on working with the application.

Let's start in order.
The FLProg program allows you to create firmware for Arduino boards using FBD and LAD graphic languages, which are the standard in the field of programming industrial controllers.


I have slightly expanded the classic functionality of these languages ​​by adding functional blocks responsible for working with external devices. They are wrappers for libraries designed to work with them.
A project in FLProg is a collection of boards, on each of which a complete module of the general scheme is assembled. For convenience, each board has a name and comments. Also, each board can be minimized (to save space in the work area when work on it is completed), and deploy. A red indicator in the name of the board indicates that there are errors in the circuit board.

View of the program window in FBD language mode


View of the program window in LAD language mode

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The layout of each board is assembled from functional blocks in accordance with the logic of the controller. Most function blocks have the ability to customize, with which their work can be configured in accordance with the requirements in this particular case.



There is also a detailed description for each functional block, which is available at any time and helps to understand its work and settings.



When working with the program, the user does not need to write code, control the use of inputs and outputs, check the uniqueness of names and consistency of data types. The program is following all this. She also verifies the correctness of the project as a whole and indicates the presence of errors.
To work with external devices created several auxiliary tools. It is a tool for initializing and setting the real-time clock, tools for reading the addresses of devices on OneWire and I2C buses, as well as a tool for reading and saving codes of buttons on the IR remote control. All specific data can be saved as a file and later used in the program.




In the following publications I will talk about the project site and the prospects for the development of the project.