.NET Gadgeteer Core 2.42.700 released

  • Article

We are really happy to announce that .NET Gadgeteer Core 2.42.700 was released today! 

https://gadgeteer.codeplex.com/releases/view/105366

This contains a few new features:

Visual Studio 2012 support

This release supports Visual Studio 2012 (all editions including Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop) and as well as retaining support for Visual Studio 2010 (and express editions).

To use Visual Studio 2012, you need to use the latest .NET Micro Framework release, v4.3.  To use Visual Studio 2010, you need to use .NET Micro Framework 4.2 QFE2.

Application Wizard

Since the matrix of Visual Studio versions, .NET Micro Framework versions and .NET Gadgeteer mainboards is getting complex, we added an “application wizard” to simplify things:

clip_image001

This wizard will help you choose the right version of .NET Micro Framework for your mainboard, and also help with installation errors such as having the wrong version of .NET Micro Framework installed.

.NET Micro Framework 4.3 support (alpha)

This release includes Gadgeteer libraries compatible with .NET Micro Framework 4.3, enabling mainboard and module manufacturers to “forward port” their designs.  We designate this as “alpha” support because, unlike for the “stable” 4.2 and 4.1 libraries, the Gadgeteer API for 4.3 may still change, in response to feedback from the community or manufacturers.  As such, we have not released source code for the 4.3 libraries at this stage, though we will do so as soon as the API is “stable”.

Power estimates

We now provide a means for manufacturers to specify the “typical” and “max” power consumption of each mainboard/module, and show this data in the Visual Studio designer – right click on the design surface and choose “Power estimate” to see it.  We considered including details of how much power is provided by red modules, but this proves hard – e.g. it might depend on what USB supply is used.  Nonetheless, we hope this will help users with understanding and fixing “power bugs”.

clip_image003

Roadmap

We are working on a few advances for .NET Gadgeteer’s 4.3 API – first, the ability to “indirect” any socket type so that modules can provide sockets as well as consume them, and second, a refactor of the LCD configuration interface to address compatibility issues.  We are aiming for a quick turnaround (as soon as May!) for this, depending on manufacturers’ feedback.  The next release is planned to be the “stable” 4.3 release.