Real Software Forums

I am trying to interface to a Velleman USB k8055 board in RS. There is a plugin available. Great!!!
https://sites.google.com/site/elettroni ... real-basic
He shares the whole Xcode project used to create it, etc, etc. (which is over my head!)
However ...... maddening ..... there are no instructions regarding how to "use it". When I investigating
the documentation I came across as statement to the effect that "When plugins are included (by
being in the Plugins folder, their controls show up as available in the sidebar." .... the problem
is, of course, this Plugin has no controls. It was created to serve the same purpose as a .dll
would in Windows providing a number of functions calls to interact with the 8055 hardware.
Long story short ... how do I interact with a plugin I have no documentation for and which creates
no controls?

I tried:

dim FunctionName as string
dim LibraryName as string
LibraryName = "k8055"
FunctionName = "ClearAllDigital"
if System.IsFunctionAvailable (FunctionName,LibraryName) then
TextField1.text="YES"
else
TextField1.text="NO"
end if

To see if I could determine what was "there" (would the Plugin name = LibraryName here????)

Any help or pointers would be very much appreciated.

Plugins integrate into REALstudio, you don't need to declare any functions yourself. Aside from making controls appear in the controls list plugins can also add new classes, global methods, and modules which aren't GUI related at all. Without documentation, though (which is a huge problem, I've found, in almost all RB plugins) it will be hard to figure out how the plugin developer intended RB developers to interact with his plugin. You might try playing around with auto-complete to see if any new classes or methods show up.

I you are iteresting in electronic components , remote control, ecc., I suggest to you to visit a web site,
where you can find at cheeper cost better hardware than 'arduino' is.

In the sites there are many sample on how to drive this electronic components with Visual Basic (it is easy to translate in RB
because you can use serial/usb an ethernet ports too)

this site is: http://www.areasx.com
Cheers,
Max.

Did you look under Help -> PluginReferences in the IDE? Any documentation baked into the plugin will appear there.

I prefer these:
http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/
Low cost. USB interface. I configure all mine as a USB HID, which means I do not need drivers to access them.

With the free Teensyduino, add-on for Arduino IDE, you can use many different sketches.

They are very compact. When paired with an adaptor like this one http://www.gadget.lk/images/large/usb_a ... mm_LRG.jpg they are hardly any bigger than a USB Thumb Drive.