Customer:
Is it possible to develop for Inkplate 6 or 6 PLUS with a more advanced IDE than Arduino, one that supports breakpoints and memory inspection? Can tools like JTAG or embedded debuggers be used? Are the necessary pins available for external debuggers?
Originally submitted via email support on 7 February 2022. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
On Inkplate, almost all of the ESP32 pins are used for controlling the e-paper. The SPI pins are free (they connect to an SD card, but if you don’t use the SD card, you can use these pins for other purposes). You can try to use the ESP32 debugger.
For programming and developing code, you can use any other IDE that supports the Arduino library, such as ESP-IDF or similar. My colleague has worked with ESP-IDF and can help if you need assistance setting it up.
Customer:
Thank you for the quick reply. I would like to see an explanation on how to use an external debugger on the Inkplate. Even if it means not using the SD card at the same time, I think it would be valuable for me and other users to have this added to your documentation. I want to use Visual Studio Code with ESP-IDF and the ESP-Prog (or similar) debugger.
My specific use case: I want to port an existing program to the Inkplate 6 PLUS. It is written in C for the RP2040 (Raspberry Pico). It displays maps from an SD card on an LCD/eink display and also uses external I2C hardware. User input is done with a touchscreen. Porting to the Inkplate would add the possibility of fetching maps from an HTTP server. Because the existing program in C has some complexity, I want to have a proper debugger to step through the program when memory or algorithm problems occur. Disabling the SD card is not a big problem because I want to concentrate on my code and fetching pictures from the web. What is more important is to step through my own code that I might have to change or adapt to use on the hardware or the Inkplate.
Soldered Support:
For Visual Studio Code, you only need to install it and set it up. Here is a tutorial on how to set it up for Arduino boards, which is similar for others: https://www.electronics-lab.com/project/programming-arduino-platform-io-arduino-extension-visual-studio-code-editor/
There is also a link for ESP-IDF: GitHub - turgu1/ESP-IDF-InkPlate: A porting effort to the ESP-IDF framework for the e-Radionica InkPlate software. · GitHub
The debugger is a nice feature for developing code and can help a lot. I found a tutorial on how to set up the debugger: https://www.hackster.io/brian-lough/use-the-platformio-debugger-on-the-esp32-using-an-esp-prog-f633b6