Create and customize the layouts and structures of electronic and electromechanical systems in the specialized integrated development environment for the development of projects combining power and stability control. Output measurement based on microcontrollers or on rugged industrial interfaces is possible.
Flowcode is a program designed for professional engineers or beginners to help them develop systems for control and measurement on microcontrollers or industrial surfaces. It offers support for programming Atmel AVR, ARM-based devices, and Arduino.
As you start the program, you are greeted by a very well-built interface, one that has well-organized tabs and menus, button icons with balanced size, and a modern and fresh color theme.
When it comes to the features, Flowcode has an abundance of them. I'll point out the ones I found to be the most important, in my opinion. One of them is the possibility of choosing from two scripted coding modes, either Pseudocode or C programming language, depending on your user level. Also, it has a simulation option, so you can check and test your designs, thus increasing the efficiency.
Moreover, it has Ghost Technology for a better test and debugs of electronic systems. Code profiling is another useful feature, used to distinguish between sections of code that may be redundant.
With Flowcode, you can also import third-party drawing packages, then bring their electromechanical elements to life. Nonetheless, you can use the multi-view system panel to view your designs from different angles.
In conclusion, I'd say that Flowcode offers all the tools an engineer needs to complete everyday tasks and it can also be used for academic use. It has support for multiple devices and a large component library. The only found downsides are the high use of system memory and the sluggish navigation that sometimes occurs.
v6.1 [Oct 16, 2014]
*Components
Feature additions:
- ESP8266 component now has a property to determine the command termination.
- Added an option for the quad 7-seg to clear a segment rather then displaying 0's.
- I2C CAL component now has Slave functionality.
- PWM component unhidden and back in Outputs due to popular demand.
- Added DALI and DMX-512 Master/Slave components.
- Added control of the contrast, display and backlight to the Picaso 4D Display component.
- TCP ENC28J60 now working with server and client examples.
- Added EBC28J60 TCP/IP Component, not fully finished but what is there works ok.
- WLAN Webserver improved support for large web pages.
- Added a port option for the T6963C gLCD component to allow much faster execution times.
- Added support for the T6963C Graphical LCD controller IC.
- Webserver-01 improved support for larger web pages.
- New component to drive ILI9341 type GLCD hardware.
- Webserver-02 improved support for larger web pages.
- Added new combo board component to supplement the functionality of the EB083 Combo E-block.
- New Bluetooth v2 component to improve the Bluetooth functionality without breaking existing programs.
- Added runtime control of the P,I and D parameters, might be a step towards auto tuning.
- ESP8266 Component - Problems with outgoing substitution.
- Added new type of sim switch in the form of a dashboard slide switch.
Bug fixes:
- Combo board had compile errors due to unconnected switch io.
- Changed the LEDs on the MIAC back to 3mm type and checked that they simulate correctly.
- Switch base component was returning the wrong state when set to active low, state returned is button state not pin state.
- EB083 Combo Board was missing a couple of mesh files.
- LED array - labels messed up and not redrawing correctly - Fixed.
- Simulation LED still referred to a pin connection, removed.
- TCPIP DLL large page handling fixed.
- LCD Control had a bug where it could not draw displays over 21 characters wide due to 512 pixel limitation.
- Servo controller for AVR was calculating the interrupt 8x too slow.
- USB Slave had an issue referencing internal function CheckRx.
Cosmetic changes:
- ESP8266 Reset pin connection is now hidden when using software reset.
- Changed some files in repos as the Component manager was reporting components with multiple source files.
- Update to the T6963 GLCD component to try and get it running.
*Tools and plugins
Feature additions:
- Added H/W detection to debugger plugin.
- Rename ICD/ICT dll "Ghost".
Bug fixes:
- Remove EB006v9 checkbox from options dialog.
- (1) Grey out ICD StepThru checkbox if detected h/w does not support ICD.
- (2) Disallow ICD simulation if no options selected.
- (3) Add dialog to report hardware detected and its capabilities.
- Improve comms on STOP/START target commands.
- Stop hang in comms when breakpoint hit.
- Enable breakpoints in ICD.
- Added drivers to the release bundle.
- Fix failure to connect to EB006V9 boards.
- When user program terminates, the simulation now stops correctly.
*CAL changes
Feature additions:
- I2C Slave, API changes, plus implemented on PIC (only, so far).
- ADC based Touch implemented on PIC16.
- support Touch via ADC.
- Bug fixes:
- Fixed dsPIC30 v dsPIC33EP compile issue.
- I2C C CAL added some redefs and fixed SSPBUFF typo.
- Fixed some register defs (PIC16BIT_CAL_ADC).
- Mods to the AVR ADC code to allow correct ADC operation on a at90can device.
- Added a new EEPROM type to the PIC16 code for the PIC24FV family.
- Fixed some bugs in the dsPIC CAN CAL file as specified by JK.
Cosmetic changes:
- Slight change to UART baud calcs to try to avoid excessive round down issue.
*FCD changes
Feature additions:
- Added mLoader programming options to the ECIO40P16 FCD.
- 16F636 added missing timer 1 interrupt.
- Added 64-pin variants of the ARM chips.
- Added new Arduino Yun target.
- Added two new Arduino targets to allow the auto detect system to work reliably.
- Added new FCD files for PIC24FVxxKX30x family.
- Arduino FCD mods to add in the default programming parameters and USB IDs.
- Added some new 8-bit PIC FCD files 16F150X.
- Added new Ard support to Leonardo, Micro and Nano328.
- Added Ard MEGA to known working devices.
- Updated ARD Uno R3 to have compiler overrides.
- Added ECIO40P16 definition file.
Bug fixes:
- Masked IOC interrupts were being assigned incorrectly in some PIC16 FCDs.
- Fixed a minor typo on the Arduino Mega pin outs for pin Digital 48.
- RXINT on ATMEGA324P referred to "USART_RX0_vect" instead of the correct vector "USART_RX_vect" includes Arduino.
- Added missing 4th PWM channel to ATMEGA32 FCD.
- Fixed an incorrect startup value for adcon0 on the 18F2455 family.
- Fixed an issue where the 12F615 device wouldn't compile due to forced redefinition of porta and gpio.
- Found a lot more PIC16 devices with the EE type bug.
- Added a new EE type for the 24FV family.
- Renamed the ATMEGA164 to 164A to allow it to compile correctly.
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