Embedded Graphics LCD

[VEGETA]

So if my project happens to be good and I wanna sell units made by it, should I pay? assuming it is still open hardware

[Jeroen3]

GPL works on the concept that you have to tell you're using it and share any modification made.
You don't have to pay for using GPL. You can, just to be out of the shadows, or to make your life easier.
For example: the compiler for qml (what you use for embedded gui) is not GPL.

[technix]

There is U8glib and its successor U8g2 but those libraries does not come with a graphical designer tool.

[kisvegabor]

Hi,

I developed a graphics library called LittlevGL. However it hasn't got a GUI designer, graphical elements (e.g. list, chart, button, slider etc. ) can be easily create with it. The library is free and open-source. 
You find it here: https://littlevgl.com/
Or at GitHub: https://github.com/littlevgl/lvgl

[phil from seattle]

How complex is your design - how many pages, buttons and so on? It's not that hard to roll you own for 10-20 pages and a couple of buttons. Then you can use about any display you want.  I'm using those little 2.2" color 320x240 SPI displays - $6 from China via AliX/eBay. They seem to work pretty well.

[edit]  ugh, sorry. saw this was an older thread. should have looked first. [/edit]

[SiliconWizard]

I developed a graphics library called LittlevGL. However it hasn't got a GUI designer, graphical elements (e.g. list, chart, button, slider etc. ) can be easily create with it. The library is free and open-source. 
You find it here: https://littlevgl.com/
Or at GitHub: https://github.com/littlevgl/lvgl

That looks great. Haven't tried it, but if it delivers what's advertised, hats off

[kisvegabor]

That looks great. Haven't tried it, but if it delivers what's advertised, hats off

Thanks! It really does what is advertised.
If you want to try it sometimes don't forget the PC simulator. This way you can try the library on PC without any embedded hardware.

[VEGETA]

That littlevgl library seems about perfect! only downside is that it does not have wysiwyg editor or designer. Do you have a solution for this? I don't imagine how would I design the thing in mid with all images and styles without an editor.

Will it work in say PIC MCUs? Arduino?

thanks!

[Mr. Scram]

PEE or any other <$10 SOC board solves this, you can design your GUI as a webpage in html, saves tons of dev time . As a bonus you get web interface (phones, tablets) for free.

It also sounds like a perfect way of adding a whole lot of unanticipated vulnerabilities, if I'm honest.

[Fire Doger]

That littlevgl library seems about perfect! only downside is that it does not have wysiwyg editor or designer. Do you have a solution for this? I don't imagine how would I design the thing in mid with all images and styles without an editor.

Will it work in say PIC MCUs? Arduino?

thanks!

If you want something fast n easy you can always make use of a picture editors like GIMP. Screenshot each widget from simulator and paste it on different layer, layout your screens and transfer dimensions back to your program.

I always wanted to make a standalone GUI designer which wil accept custom widgets but needs a lot of time.

[VEGETA]

If you want something fast n easy you can always make use of a picture editors like GIMP. Screenshot each widget from simulator and paste it on different layer, layout your screens and transfer dimensions back to your program.

That won't be any good since we want something like visualstudio where you modify everything without the need for that.

If such a software is there, I guarantee you that this library will be extremely famous. No one will buy any expensive software packages and most importantly it will work with any hardware... unlike the Nextion displays for example which are pricey and its software is only for them.

I always wanted to make a standalone GUI designer which wil accept custom widgets but needs a lot of time.

open a project on github and ask for help.

[Fire Doger]

That won't be any good since we want something like visualstudio where you modify everything without the need for that.

Yea this is what I want to do... But!

Is a win exe the best way to do it? Microchip has a GUI designer plugin for NetBeans, before a couple of years android apps were designed in Eclipse which also had an ADK plugin. A plugin for an IDE will be much better but you have to know how to design plugins

If such a software is there, I guarantee you that this library will be extremely famous. No one will buy any expensive software packages and most importantly it will work with any hardware... unlike the Nextion displays for example which are pricey and its software is only for them.

For how long and who will use it?
If a SOC like PI costs 5$ who will play with bare metal? Someone who targets lowest price.
These people (Companies) usually can afford a proper software with proper support etc etc...
So we end up with the engineer who is trying to build something in his basement.
Meh, I don't think that it worth's more than 6 months of effort, someone will do it some day...

MikroE had/s a TFT Designer, now they included it in every compiler for free.

open a project on github and ask for help.

Sounds good, never works
Always on a project there must be a guy (or a team) who is capable to deliver a working result.
I barely know what I am talking about, all I have is the idea, google results and a basic knowledge of C#.
I have found a guy in StackOverflow who wanted to make the same thing, he got 1 answer...

The only reason that I am searching about it its because its an interesting way to learn more about C#, winform, WPF etc on my free time and if it goes well it will be published open. Also I stared the library on github

[VEGETA]

Yea this is what I want to do... But!

Is a win exe the best way to do it? Microchip has a GUI designer plugin for NetBeans, before a couple of years android apps were designed in Eclipse which also had an ADK plugin. A plugin for an IDE will be much better but you have to know how to design plugins

I didn't mean windows exe, I meant a designer software that looks like visualstudio or qt... You can make it as a plugin too if it works, I don't know about this. I haven't used microchip GUI designer and for some reason it is not famous like other PIC stuff like mplab x.

For how long and who will use it?
If a SOC like PI costs 5$ who will play with bare metal? Someone who targets lowest price.

Raspberry Pi costs a lot and will never be like an Arduino pro mini (~2$). Here in Jordan it costs a bit more too! So I don't know where you get it for 5$

MikroE had/s a TFT Designer, now they included it in every compiler for free.

That is news to me, I didn't expect them to make it free. But again, this is mikroE and you will stick with their tools. No one wants that.

[Fire Doger]

Raspberry Pi costs a lot and will never be like an Arduino pro mini (~2$). Here in Jordan it costs a bit more too! So I don't know where you get it for 5$

In the past engineers used to have separate CPU and peripherals, then MCUs came and were expensive AF. Now we have GPU and DDR integrated in TQFP, FPGAs etc.

That is news to me, I didn't expect them to make it free. But again, this is mikroE and you will stick with their tools. No one wants that.

If none wanted that they would bankrupt.

You stick to the lib too. If I wanted to do something serious I would prefer to stick to a library that its developed by a company as a product or for their MCU.
Again, microchip has their own (which is new), NXP gives free EmWin for their products, ST has their own I think.

*Maybe you can download emWin from NXP and design the custom widgets in emWin, that would be very cool...

*Edit, I didn't check QT, its downloading now to give it a try

[VEGETA]

In the past engineers used to have separate CPU and peripherals, then MCUs came and were expensive AF. Now we have GPU and DDR integrated in TQFP, FPGAs etc.

I know but it won't be 5$ worldwide any time soon, unless the Chinese starts making them.

You stick to the lib too. If I wanted to do something serious I would prefer to stick to a library that its developed by a company as a product or for their MCU.

That is quite reasonable but subjective. The better way is to use something that is as free as possible, used by millions of people, supported by tons of tutorials and community projects... which means MPLab X with XC8 compiler is the go-to choice for PICs with PICKit3. No need at all to get third-party tools, I really see no reason.

Edit, I didn't check QT, its downloading now to give it a try

I haven't used it but I know it has that feature, you should download qt for device creation. The problem with qt is the licensing thing.

[Fire Doger]

I know but it won't be 5$ worldwide any time soon, unless the Chinese starts making them.

exactly

That is quite reasonable but subjective. The better way is to use something that is as free as possible, used by millions of people, supported by tons of tutorials and community projects... which means MPLab X with XC8 compiler is the go-to choice for PICs with PICKit3. No need at all to get third-party tools, I really see no reason.

I will disagree on the better way.
Free gives the opportunity to be used by millions but developing needs funding somehow.
Million users means libraries, tutorials, documentation etc which results on faster application developing time.
Do you disagree that with arduino you can be up n running in 5 mins without knowing binary?
Is it efficient? No, is it robust? No etc...
The best depends on what you are looking for.

The library is great, very well source, comments, structure, portability etc...
It can easily be popular with some nice documentation (like nextion's html, I always forget the type name)
Maybe kisvegabor has a plan on making a GUI builder.