SBB Host
Host communication with the self balancing bike.
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General

Application for host communication with the self-balancing-bike microcontroller.

About

SBB Host is a desktop application used for the communication with the self-balancing-bike microcontroller via USB. It can be used for signal streaming from the microcontroller, control of the motor drivers, and reading of the log files (having extension *.sbb).

Files

Files:

  • SBBHost.sln, SBBHost.vcxproj, SBBHost.vcxproj.filters,SBBHost.vcxproj.user ,SBBHost.rc ,resource.h: project files necessary for Visual Studio (in Windows only)
  • Makefile: makefile necessary for compilation and installation in Linux
  • Doxyfile: configuration file for documentation generation from source code using doxygen
  • configure: configure script (to use before building or installation)
  • installation_path.txt: installation path (updated by configure). Do not delete this file!

Code folders:

  • ./include: contains .h files included in source code
  • ./src: contains source .c or .cpp files, inclduing main file main.cpp
  • ./lib: contains a folder for each used library

Additional folders:

  • ./resource: contains additional resource files necessary for the application
  • ./docs/html: contains the documentation in html (generated automatically from source code using doxygen)
  • ./bin: contains binary files
  • ./.build: contains temporary files created during compilation
  • ./.vscode: contains VS code property file(s)

Installer files and folders:

  • ./installer: folder containing the installer files
  • ./installer/installer.vdproj: installer project necessary for Visual Studio (in Windows only)
  • ./installer/win64: contains the Windows x64 installer
  • ./installer/linux: contains the Linux installation files

Note that some of the above folders are created during building only.

Prerequisites

Building and installation work on Windows x64 or Linux.

For only installation in Windows x64 no prerequisites are necessary: all binary files are provided with the installer.

For Linux installation it is necessary to install

  • make: this usually can be simple done by using in the terminal

    sudo pacman -Sy make
    Note
    The code above works with Arch Linux distributions, similar commands may be used in other Linux distributions (e.g. apt install make in Debian/Ubuntu).
  • gtkmm4 libraries, including all its dependencies
  • fftw3 libraries See Installation of libraries for details on the installation of libraries.

For building the code and the installer, the following prerequisites are necessary:

  • Visual Studio (>=2017) for Windows, or alternatively Mingw-w64 (e.g. with MSYS2)
  • gtkmm4 libraries, including all its dependencies
  • fftw3 libraries for Linux and Mingw-w64, while libraries are already given in ./lib for Windows using Visual Studio
  • g++ with make for Linux and Mingw-w64
  • doxygen for documentation generations

For building in Linux or with Mingw-w64 it is racommended to have also Visual Studio Code with C/C+ (ms-vscode) installed. This is not mandatory for compilation but it helps for code completation and make the compilation simpler.

Installation (user)

  • ArchLinux: installation can be performed using the AUR with pacman.

  • For other distributions the installation is manual and involves:

    .\configure
    make build
    make install

    Use make uninstall for unistalling. Installation requires root permission. This actually adds the following files to the root

    • /usr/local/bin/sbbhost
    • /usr/local/share/sbbhost-config.ini
    • /usr/local/share/sbbhost/sbbhost-toolbar.xml
    • /usr/local/share/doc/sbbhost/README.md
    • /usr/local/share/applications/sbbhost.desktop
    • /usr/local/share/pixmaps/sbbhost-icon.svg

    You may perform local installation (i.e. not system-wide) using .\configure --prefix $HOME/.local.

  • Windows x64: just use ./installer/win64/SBBHost Installer.msi to install the application in Windows using a setup wizard.

    Attention
    It is highly racommended to not change the installation directory. However, if you want to change the installation directory during the setup wizard, you must change the variable gsettings_dir in the file path_to_installation/sbbhost-config.ini with
    gsettings_dir = 'path_to_installation\share';
    Note
    For Windows, building is not mandatory for installation, since pre-compiled binaries are provided.

Configuration file

After installation, the configuration file path/to/installation/sbbhost-config.ini may be changed in order to configure the application with special features. These include:

  • Default values for buadrate and timeout of the serial port
  • Header and terminator bytes of the data packet
  • Enable the darkmode on startup
  • Modify the signal list
  • Modify the control list and their upper, lower limits and default values
  • Modify the default size of windows and dialogs, as well as the appearance of the graph

However, modifications should be done carefully by expert users. In Linux, the configuration file is in /usr/share (for ArchLinux) or /usr/local/share.

Documentation (for development)

Documentation for the source code (but not for the used libraries in ./lib) can be generated from the source using doxygen (see https://www.doxygen.nl/download.html for download) with

doxygen

or also using make

make doc

Generated documentation includes only a html version in ./docs/html, with main fil index.html. Documentation is also available on https://stefphd.github.io/SBBHost/. A latex documentation may be also generated by setting

GENERATE_LATEX = YES

in Doxyfile. The latex version will be in ./docs/latex and can be compiled using latex with

cd ./docs/latex
make

which generates the pdf file ./doc/latex/refman.pdf. Note that this requires having latex installed.

Installation of libraries (for development)

gtkmm4 libraries (including all its dependencies) can be installed with:

  • Linux:

    sudo pacman -Sy gtkmm-4.0
    Note
    The code above works with Arch Linux distributions, similar commands may be used in other Linux distributions.
  • Windows: use vcpkg (see https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg) for installation with Visual Studio. Other actions may be necessary to make Visual Studio working properly. See Workaround with gtkmm in Visual Studio for details.

fftw3 library can be installed with:

  • Linux:

    sudo pacman -Sy fftw
    Note
    The code above works with Arch Linux distributions, similar commands may be used in other Linux distributions.
  • Windows: no installation is required, since pre-compiled binaries are provided.

Alternatively, for Windows you may also use Mingw-w64 with MSYS2 instead of Visual Studio. This requires having the mingw-w64-x86_64-gtkmm-4.0 and mingw-w64-x86_64-fftw packages installed.

Building (for develpement)

  • Linux and Mingw-w64: building makes use of a makefile. Before building the executable for standalone usage (i.e. without installation), it is necessary to run the configure with

    ./configure --prefix .

    Depending on what you would like to do, there are different options

    • Build the code: make build in the terminal (does not rebuild if files do not change)
    • Clean object files: make clean
    • Clean built files (including binaries): make cleaner
    • Rebuild: make remake (regardless if files have changed or not)
    • Build the code and generate the documentation: just use make or make all

    If installed, you may also use Visual Studio Code using ctrl+shift+B to build and generate the documentation (this corresponds to make all).

  • Windows with Visual Studio: just use Visual Studio in x64-Realase mode. Make sure to use the C++17 (ISO/IEC 14882) compiler. The installer is built using Visual Studio too.

Workaround with <em>gtkmm</em> in <em>Visual Studio</em>

The gtkmm-4.0 libraries have been initially meant to be used in Linux systems, therefore it is not trivial to use them in Windows, especially with Visual Studio. The workaround is to use vcpkg, which is a tool for installing packages in Windows.

Accordingly to the README file in https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg, installation is performed with:

  • Install the prerequisites, i.e. Git (see https://git-scm.com/downloads), and Visual Studio (>=2015 declared, >=2017 for gtkmm4). Git is only used to clone the repository at https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg in the PC: you can also download the repository directly.

  • Create a path where to install vcpkg. Example path is C:\src\vcpkg or C:\dev\vcpkg, e.g. using the command prompt (with administrator elevation)

    mkdir C:\src\vcpkg

  • Go to C:\src (or the installation path employed), e.g. using

    cd C:\src

  • Clone the repository using Git

    git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg

  • Bootstrap vcpkg using

    .\vcpkg\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat

  • Install the gtkmm4 libraries (x64 version)

    .\vcpkg\vcpkg install gtkmm --triplet=x64-windows

    This includes download and building of all the necessary dependencies. Installation can takes some time.

  • Install integrate to use vcpkg with Visual Studio (with administrator elevation) using

    .\vcpkg\vcpkg integrate install

After having installed gtkmm-4.0, the libraries should appear in C:\src\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows. There the folder ./include contains all the include files to use in the C/C++ source, while ./bin and ./tools contain the corresponding binaries file (i.e. *.dll). You can also find the static libraries in ./lib.

You can test if Visual Studio works by compiling the HelloWorld example in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtkmm-documentation/tree/master/examples/book/helloworld. Make sure to:

  • use Visual Studio in x64-Realase mode.
  • use the C++17 (ISO/IEC 14882) compiler.

If issues are found, these are probably due to an incorrect include directory created by vcpkg for the Visual Studio compiler. The workaround is to install pkg-config, which is a tool for generating the include directories for C/C++ libraries:

  • Install pkgconf (alias for pkg-config in vcpkg) using

    .\vcpkg\vcpkg install pkgconf --triplet=x64-windows

  • Set an environment variable named VCPKG_ROOT pointing to the vcpkg installation path and restart the command prompt. This may be performed using the terminal (with administrator elevation), e.g. (use your installation path) with

    setx VCPKG_ROOT C:\src\vcpkg\ /m

  • Go to VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\tools\pkgconf

    cd %VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\tools\pkgconf

  • Run pkg-config with gtkmm4 using

    pkgconf --cflags-only-I gtkmm-4.0 --with-path=%VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\lib\pkgconfig

    This prints a list of include diretories (e.g. -IC:VCPKG_ROOT%/installed/**), which is the flag to pass to the C/C++ compiler for including the necessary directories.

  • You may also print a nicer list of include directories using in the Windows PowerShell

    cd $env:VCPKG_ROOT\installed\x64-windows\tools\pkgconf
    $(./pkgconf --cflags-only-I gtkmm-4.0 --with-path=$env:VCPKG_ROOT\installed\x64-windows\lib\pkgconfig) -replace "-I", "`n"
    Attention
    Make sure to use the Windows PowerShell, not the Command Prompt.

  • In Visual Studio put these directories in Additional Include Directory for the C/C++ compiler. You may also add the following additional compiler flag

    `%VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\tools\pkgconf\pkgconf --cflags-only-I gtkmm-4.0 --with-path=%VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\lib\pkgconfig`

    or alternatively the output of

    pkgconf --cflags-only-I gtkmm-4.0 --with-path=%VCPKG_ROOT%\installed\x64-windows\lib\pkgconfig

Tips

  • You may also install the x32 version of the packages. In such case use .\vcpkg\vcpkg install gtkmmand.\vcpkg\vcpkg install pkgconf and replace all x64-windows with x86-windows in all commands.
  • When using gtkmm you may need to add an environment variable named GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR pointing to C:\src\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows\share\glib-2.0\schemas. You may also make a local copy of this directory in your project folder, which can be copied in the binary folder. This environment variable may be either global or local (you can use putenv command in C)

Known issues

  • Help me to find issues

  • 2+2=5

    Todo:
    Change makefile to make it compatible with Mingw-w64. Copying dlls when building. TODO is to add -mwindows in cflags and change TARGETDIR if OS=WINDOWS.
    Todo:

    add more gestures to move and zoom in plots: e.g. press roll to move, and roll to zoom

    drag and drop in Windows

    Implement help but for linux and installation

    Implement direct open of a *.sbb file (argv and argc)????

    Add plot settings (plot_graph_decim, etc)

    Implement PSD in plot mode