Programming Wink with CodeBender
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 6:59 am
In my quest to enable a classroom of students to quickly setup to code for the Wink, I was frustrated at the level of software and driver installation and copying of sketches required to get up and running. It took me awhile to get it working on one PC and then it was still tedious to repeat on several other machines. I wanted to be able to program on a new machine with minimal setup and with easy source code access. In an alternate thread, I described my success getting a Chromebook to work. This thread is to talk about the software side, using https://codebender.cc/home .
Codebender is a full Arduino IDE built into a web browser. With a free login, you can begin to write your own sketches. You can search for existing public sketches as a starting point. You can draw upon a large base of pre-installed libraries (including the NeoPixel library needed by Wink), and you can create and install your own personal libraries as well, so that these can be shared across all of your own sketches. It required a bit of fixing of a few details, but I was able to port all three primary demo programs (BaseSketch, PreLoadedDemo, and IRExample).
So, once you are logged into CodeBender, you can search for my fully functional Wink Sketches, and you can clone and use them instantly. Just search for "Wink_" and you'll start finding them. I made three that exactly match the versions available at PlumGeek. And I created a fourth, Wink_BaseSketch, which has made WinkHardware and FunStuff into libraries that I will share with my other sketches (these have additions I've made on top of the original WinkHardware content).
So, if you'd like to try a different development platform, you can use CodeBender and grab/clone my version of the main programs:
Wink_BaseSketch_Rev01_03
Wink_PreLoadedDemo_Rev01
Wink_IRExample_Rev01_03
You can use Codebender to program from your PC, or you can use it on a Chromebook! No software/drivers needed on the Chromebook. I don't know if you still need the USB/Com driver on the PC. Just install the app in the chrome browser.
Good Luck,
Wayne
Codebender is a full Arduino IDE built into a web browser. With a free login, you can begin to write your own sketches. You can search for existing public sketches as a starting point. You can draw upon a large base of pre-installed libraries (including the NeoPixel library needed by Wink), and you can create and install your own personal libraries as well, so that these can be shared across all of your own sketches. It required a bit of fixing of a few details, but I was able to port all three primary demo programs (BaseSketch, PreLoadedDemo, and IRExample).
So, once you are logged into CodeBender, you can search for my fully functional Wink Sketches, and you can clone and use them instantly. Just search for "Wink_" and you'll start finding them. I made three that exactly match the versions available at PlumGeek. And I created a fourth, Wink_BaseSketch, which has made WinkHardware and FunStuff into libraries that I will share with my other sketches (these have additions I've made on top of the original WinkHardware content).
So, if you'd like to try a different development platform, you can use CodeBender and grab/clone my version of the main programs:
Wink_BaseSketch_Rev01_03
Wink_PreLoadedDemo_Rev01
Wink_IRExample_Rev01_03
You can use Codebender to program from your PC, or you can use it on a Chromebook! No software/drivers needed on the Chromebook. I don't know if you still need the USB/Com driver on the PC. Just install the app in the chrome browser.
Good Luck,
Wayne