Wishlist for V8

[MJU]

I really liked Flowcode, I bought it starting from V3 right to V7.

But after all this time I'm sort of hoping that Flowcode would get a new jumpstart.

Compared with Arduino (sorry people @Matrix) there is a large gap between the amount of components.
For every possible electronic component there is a Arduino library.
In Flowcode there are (compared to Arduino), very little components.
And from V7 you have to pay for the most common component (in packs).

Certain components are developed by (or based upon work from) users and later they have to pay to use these components.

On the other hand, some features that -I guess-, a large part of Flowcode buyers don't use is integrated in the core.
I'm talking about the 3D function.
If I could I would like to pay less for a version that doesn't have this feature.

Maybe you could put it in a pack so people could reduce the cost of their Flowcode version, this would be great.

I get a 50% reduction on the V8 version, this is great off course, but V7 hasn't been developed to the fullest. During all these years I paid enough for the versions I own. Still there are many components that I would like to see but never got.

There are still features that work fine, and V8 doesn't have that much new to offer.
So please keep V7 alive. Keep adding components to it (even if it only was for us early-version-buyers).

[kersing]

Comparing Flowcode to Arduino with regards to components supported is not fair. For Arduino almost all components are created and provided by 3th parties. Whenever Adafruit and the like 'create' a new piece of hardware they make sure there is a library for it.

Creating a library for Arduino is less work because there is no need to provide simulation capabilities. Being able to simulate without the need to deploy to hardware is a major feature of Flowcode. Being able to simulate C code (in FC8) is a huge improvement making it even more useful.

If you want the same amount of components for Flowcode you need to convince the hardware makers to provide those components, create them yourself and release them into the wild or convince the community to create components and release them. Matrix can in no way keep up with all the hardware released (and they can't afford to buy all hardware to create components for it).

Since version 6 we (Flowcode users) have an easy option to create components, including simulation, how many components have been build and shared?? So may-be we (the community) need to look at ourselves as well...

[MJU]

Comparing Flowcode to Arduino with regards to components supported is not fair. For Arduino almost all components are created and provided by 3th parties. Whenever Adafruit and the like 'create' a new piece of hardware they make sure there is a library for it.

Creating a library for Arduino is less work because there is no need to provide simulation capabilities. Being able to simulate without the need to deploy to hardware is a major feature of Flowcode. Being able to simulate C code (in FC8) is a huge improvement making it even more useful.

If you want the same amount of components for Flowcode you need to convince the hardware makers to provide those components, create them yourself and release them into the wild or convince the community to create components and release them. Matrix can in no way keep up with all the hardware released (and they can't afford to buy all hardware to create components for it).

Since version 6 we (Flowcode users) have an easy option to create components, including simulation, how many components have been build and shared?? So may-be we (the community) need to look at ourselves as well...

Thank you for your opinion, but I still think that Matrix has a lot of work to do.
I really hope they sell well, and they are financial healthy with what they are doing.

But I look at it in a broader way.
The several hackerspaces/makerspaces I visit are visited by people that want to make stuff in a way Matrix would be interested in.
But when I mention Flowcode, they start laughing.
"But that is not free"...

I don't want to suggest that Flowcode must be free, but why choose for FC if you can use something for free that takes a bit more "code"??
I don't simulate projects when I'm working on something. If I could choose between a simulatable component or other that can't be simulated, if there are more "non simulatable" components, I would choose the latter.

Problem is that FC contains components that work and are tested but sometimes still have bugs. This generate a lot of time loss if you are working on something.
Some of them are components that barely can be found without a useraccount with one of the big suppliers.
So for hobbyists these are useless.
I already suggested in the past that Matrix should look into what is hot on Aliexpress (and so on), and quickly make a component for it.
Not for a chip that is used now and won't be available within a year when there are many more such devices in the cheaper part of the internet.

Community? I bought my first licence 7/11/2007, that is almost 11 years ago.
The forum was one of the most promising features why I bought E-blocks and FC.
But let's be honest. How many people post contribute to the forum (like you guys which replied and "liked")?
I consider this as like Toyota produces a car that you can buy, and if you are lucky someone makes a airco for it.
The next version of this car can be bought with an airco if you pay for it.
FC is a commercial product, Matrix should not have to depend on what other make for free for them.

As I told, I also contributed in several ways to Flowcode. But how many components are being created by the "community"?
The people that I know that are busy in electronics don't mind to write code.
I only know one student that used FC at school, but later they need to learn code and as soon as they know how: they don't mind learning new languages.
"I need a ESP.., I will learn LUA especially for this project".

No FC is not cool for many of the people that work in electronics. "Not an option"

I hope Matrix has a good view of which people they want to sell to. (I really hope so)
But this is my vision: start bulk produce components for stuff that is hot on (let's say) Aliexpress.
Don't put your time in generating components that are rare and very specific.
Meanwhile: bulk produce (if necessary non-simulatable), components.

Matrix did a smart thing putting components in packs.
Every microcontroller has peripherals that are basic. By putting them all in different packs you have to buy more packs just for basic operations.
An LCD display and a I2C, an SPI or a basic I/O, an EEPROM these are basic features, but I you want to use it, you have to buy 5 different packs.
I really don't need 5 different switches, these are all the same but the appearance is different if you want to simulate them.
Don't need 7 different knobs for a potentiometer. I need just one component: an ADC..

I would never buy a chip that has a FC component when there is a cheap breakoutboard in one mouseclick on Aliexpress.

And... If I could choose for a FC version that doesn't have the 3D part, I would like to pay less for it.

But this is my observation, my opinion...

[Docara]

HI MJU

I agree with you 100% but Kersing also has a point.

I like using FC but I am increasingly getting frustrated with Matrix management and there direction of the software. They can't even be bothered to give us a proper help file. Like you I would to produce components for the community but I just don't know how. This is why FC in it's current form will never succeed! People out there are teaching themselves 'proper' (cough cough) programming because of the Arduino IDE and libraries. It is this fact which is negating the need for programs like FC. With the advent of the Arduino ecosystem and the need to program the (hobbyist) electronics community is evolving and progressing very quickly. Arduino's are now the go-to devices especially with the influx of cheap Chinese boards available on our favourite auction site(s).

As you said, and as I stated somewhere here when v8 was announced, v7 feels like it's unfinished and is still buggy. I have never known so many component 'bug' posts to the forum than in the past 18months or so. Unless Matrix sort themselves out and evolve they will have big problems in the near future. I can't help feeling that if it wasn't for education they would be screwed, as they don't offer enough in their software for a proper commercial development package. The main selling point of FC, for me, is the simulation facility. With the release of free programs like XOD we no longer need to use FC to make up for our inadequate programming capability. And also, if I'm honest, I would have a hard time justifying the continued use of FC if it wasn't for Ben and Leigh on the forums.


Now, a little while ago I requested a 1-wire component 'sub-system'. What do I mean by a sub-system in this context. Well, I realised that having just a component made for each required chip or module was no longer realistic or achievable. So the component I requested wasn't really for a chip but for a way of seamlessly talking to the 1-wire bus (via a specific bus driver) and have bidirectional access to the registers of any 1-wire device on the bus up to 200m long. It is this sort of area I think FC needs to work on in order to survive. It needs to drop the continued reliance on individual 'things' and make sub-system components which can access everything transparently on the bus and leave us to choose what to do with it (like the Arduino libraries do) and to allow importing of libraries into FC. This together with making sure every hardware internal component on a 'supported' microcontroller is actually fully implemented.

In conclusion - I think Matrix needs to make it easier for us to justify the continued use of FC.

Matt

[Benj]

Some interesting ideas there guys, thanks for contributing.

Please bear in mind, makers generally don't want to pay for software and so chasing the maker movement exclusively is fairly guaranteed to cause us problems long term. That's not to say they are not important to us.

We have just celebrated our 25th Anniversary and we certainly have some exciting ideas for the next 25 years.

[QMESAR]

Hi All.
I really do think comparing FC with Arduino is a bit unfair ,Once you need to go into a commercial project you soon will find out the limits of
the Arduino libraries and 3rd party supported libraries,

FC is a tool and a great tool with its short comings as any other tool and I can say that with confidence has started with micro's in 1979 those were the days of MPLAB4/MPLAB5 many moons ago and ever since learned that it is not possible to rely on one tool chain only has been using FC,MPLAB with its C compilers and mikroC to obtain a tool set that cover 99% of my needs .

One point that I agree with and has mentioned this in the past on this Forum as well is that FC support for Components and limited compared to any other tool chain not only Arduino .Other tools chains support technologies such Motor Control(BLDC/induction motors)LORA,V2V etc these are the things I would like to see FC move forward with

FC is great tool and for sure value for money I love my V6,V7 and V8

[MJU]

Some interesting ideas there guys, thanks for contributing.

Please bear in mind, makers generally don't want to pay for anything and so chasing the maker movement exclusively is fairly guaranteed to cause us problems long term. That's not to say they are not important to us.

We have just celebrated our 25th Anniversary and we certainly have some exciting ideas for the next 25 years.

Dear Ben and other readers,

I really hope that Matrix has enough ideas for the next 25 years, I really hope all the best for you.
In the past I got really good support in many times, but now, to buy the V8 it tickles a bit.

If I compare the new stuff since the 3D feature, I really think that the electronic part of FC has suffered in favour of the develepment of the 3D feature.
I'm honest if I tell that FC was an eyeopener for me to start with microcontrollers. I studied electronics in a time that microcontrollers weren't that frequently used. But, even in my "old man vision", FC doesn't grow as it could/should/would.
Certain electronic parts are so common these days that it is almost not done to not support them.

@BenJ, why doesn't FC get sold without the 3D feature? Why don't you sell this feature as a pack?
Maybe this could be a test if this feature is popular or not?

Why isn't there a pack where the most common feature of microcontroller is sold in 1 pack?
I have spend (many) thousands of € in Eblocks and Flowcode. I helped Matrix with my contributions, but there was a moment that it was easier to make my own boards to connect with microcontrollers. It is more flexible to just buy separate parts and hook them up with a microcontroller.

Please think about what is new in V8 in comparison to V7 for people that have V7?
I really hope that Matrix is financial healthy, but it could be healthier if you could convince the makers that know little about electronics.
I speak in confidence that there is a large market for Matrix in people that would like to pay if they don't have to search for components that otherwise are very easy to find in other develop software.
You should get these people on board. And yes, maybe the Arduino software has it limitations, but the support is enormous and there is a large amount of "modern" parts that are supported.

Please make Flowcode great again by adding much more components to it.

BTW: I do use FC to make 3D stuff. But I design my parts to be 3D-printed in Fusion 360. Even the simulation can be done in this free program.

[Benj]

Compared with Arduino (sorry people @Matrix) there is a large gap between the amount of components.
For every possible electronic component there is a Arduino library.
In Flowcode there are (compared to Arduino), very little components.

Generally we create components as and when they are requested, often in our spare time as an unpaid hobby. Please can you give us a list of components you would like to see in Flowcode and we can look into creating these for you.

Just saying Arduino has more components available is not really helpful or productive.

We have had complaints before about being too eager to add new components. e.g. we add a component based on a user request which is based on an Arduino library. The Arduino library has bugs and these bugs get copied into the Flowcode component. Another customer then buys Flowcode as they have already encountered the Arduino bug and expect Flowcode to work properly. Once they get Flowcode they find it has the same problem as the Arduino and complain. We spend days trying to fix the problem at the cost of all other commitments. I hope you can see this is very hard to justify financially.

If I compare the new stuff since the 3D feature, I really think that the electronic part of FC has suffered in favour of the develepment of the 3D feature.

I can promise you this is not the case and in fact completely the opposite of what you're saying. Since the release of v6 we have been unchained and able to work significantly faster to create new component content. Previously it was a significant amount of work to add a single component. Since the launch of v8 there has been a fairly significant number of new components added as well as significant feature improvements within components. Just look at the number of components available in v5 compared to v7. It jumps from tens to hundreds!

Also the number of supported chips has risen significantly and as requested we have been able to support more device families.

@BenJ, why doesn't FC get sold without the 3D feature? Why don't you sell this feature as a pack?

It's actually significantly easier and faster for us to make a nice 3D model then it is to create a nice 2D graphic. 3D just makes sense and artificially stripping it out to try and claw more money doesn't really make any sense. Saying this we are in the process of re-thinking the 2D panel for upcoming improvements.

Why isn't there a pack where the most common feature of microcontroller is sold in 1 pack?

Who dictates what goes into this pack? Different users will want different things. The most common components are already available for free.

We used to have a single Flowcode license with all components, users voted time and time again to break the components up to allow them to purchase the packs they required.

Please think about what is new in V8 in comparison to V7 for people that have V7?

v8 has lots of improvements to components, new chip packs, an integrated update feature and lots more to come. Also we took big steps to simplify component creation so that hopefully we can get users to create more components.

https://www.matrixtsl.com/wiki/index.ph ... _Version_8

But when I mention Flowcode, they start laughing.
"But that is not free"...

Have you tried v8 in free mode? Its significantly better then the previous free versions.
We made the CAL components and some of the other more useful building block components free to hopefully entice some Arduino users to use Flowcode in the free mode and create libraries or content.

Have a nice weekend.

[QMESAR]

Compared with Arduino (sorry people @Matrix) there is a large gap between the amount of components.
For every possible electronic component there is a Arduino library.

This is not quite true as there are thousands of electronic components not support and they are all the ones that does not fit into Hobby market,
Arduino has companies that makes a living in producing HW quick solution boards to the likes of Adafruit, chipkit and mikro elektronika etc ,these people does not make a living on selling a SW that can be used by professionals for commercial projects and by 95% of makers and hobbyist.
These companies make libraries for the board/with attached components in order to sell the HW, this has nothing to do with professional commercial product development which requires a certain amount of skills and this is where flowcode stands ,You will not be able to show any commercial project developed on Arduino libraries.

Matrix does not sell purely HW Hobbyist boards Flowcode is a professional tool that can be used by professionals and makers.
Sorry in my opinion this tread drifts in a direction were we compare apples with bananas .

This is my 2 cents on this Arduino vs Flowcode, Mplab Codecomposer etc,

[MJU]

Generally we create components as and when they are requested, often in our spare time as an unpaid hobby. Please can you give us a list of components you would like to see in Flowcode and we can look into creating these for you.

You must love your job a lot, but it disappoints me a bit to read this.
Doesn't your employer give you time to develop stuff that people pay for?
Do they depend on the fact that ones you get home you start working again (as a hobbyist) to make stuff they earn money with? Who is your boss, I will mail him immedatly.
I will make a list as soon as I have the time. But I isn't it better to facilitate this by encourage this in the "feature request" topic?
Working with Flowcode used to be a daily routine for me, but this has become very much less because I think V7 still hasn't reached its full potential yet.

Just saying Arduino has more components available is not really helpful or productive.

We have had complaints before about being too eager to add new components. e.g. we add a component based on a user request which is based on an Arduino library. The Arduino library has bugs and these bugs get copied into the Flowcode component. Another customer then buys Flowcode as they have already encountered the Arduino bug and expect Flowcode to work properly. Once they get Flowcode they find it has the same problem as the Arduino and complain. We spend days trying to fix the problem at the cost of all other commitments. I hope you can see this is very hard to justify financially.

I don't subscribe the facts that there are too many components. Maybe they complain about the fact that for a simple button there are multiple versions? 11 in my FC 7. Or 5 different versions of a potentiometer. These are just different graphical representations for the same component. Then, if I look at other components.. There are a lot of components that are made for devices that are hardly available. LCD screens that are rare and where there are much cheaper alternative for.

If I compare the new stuff since the 3D feature, I really think that the electronic part of FC has suffered in favour of the develepment of the 3D feature.


I can promise you this is not the case and in fact completely the opposite of what you're saying. Since the release of v6 we have been unchained and able to work significantly faster to create new component content. Previously it was a significant amount of work to add a single component. Since the launch of v8 there has been a fairly significant number of new components added as well as significant feature improvements within components. Just look at the number of components available in v5 compared to v7. It jumps from tens to hundreds!

Also the number of supported chips has risen significantly and as requested we have been able to support more device families.

This pleases me a lot. I know what you mean by this but. The step between V5 and V7 was significant. But, V7 still isn't developed yet as it should be for me. (as I wrote before).

It's actually significantly easier and faster for us to make a nice 3D model then it is to create a nice 2D graphic. 3D just makes sense and artificially stripping it out to try and claw more money doesn't really make any sense. Saying this we are in the process of re-thinking the 2D panel for upcoming improvements.
Who dictates what goes into this pack? Different users will want different things. The most common components are already available for free. But I paid for it many times.

Who dictates what goes in which pack? Obviously Matrix does?
It's the oldest trick in the book. Sell items that logically belong with each other separately and you get more revenue.
I have licenses for almost every microcontroller family. I have multiple programmerboards (even ECIO stuff) and everytime I want to make something I grab to an Arduino..
Why? It's cheap and it always works..

We used to have a single Flowcode license with all components, users voted time and time again to break the components up to allow them to purchase the packs they required.

And this hasn't anything to do with the fact that it generates more income for Matrix?

Please think about what is new in V8 in comparison to V7 for people that have V7?

v8 has lots of improvements to components, new chip packs, an integrated update feature and lots more to come. Also we took big steps to simplify component creation so that hopefully we can get users to create more components.

I'm not considering buying V8 because V7 for me is still a work in progress..

Have you tried v8 in free mode? Its significantly better then the previous free versions.
We made the CAL components and some of the other more useful building block components free to hopefully entice some Arduino users to use Flowcode in the free mode and create libraries or content.

I really hope they do so, but like in V7: how many components were made by users? The NRF24L01 is based on a a work that I made. Where is the logic that if I only want this component in a pack, I have to pay for the whole pack where I don't even care about the other components.

Have a nice weekend.

I know I sound like a cheap, old nag but I really mean it that in my opinion V7 has a lot of work ahead before I think it was worth my money. I always felt connected with Matrix and Flowcode. But I feel disappointed with ... actually what I wrote already in this post..
I wish you too a very pleasant weekend (or should I say working week already).

[Benj]

Hello,

I'm not too sure I follow you. You have posted in the v8 section of the forum with the title "wishlist for v8", yet you are asking for v7 work to be done?

What exactly do you feel us unfinished with v7, maybe if you give specifics we can look into this for you.

What new components / features would you like to see, can you provide a list?

[MJU]

Hello,

I'm not too sure I follow you. You have posted in the v8 section of the forum with the title "wishlist for v8", yet you are asking for v7 work to be done?

What exactly do you feel us unfinished with v7, maybe if you give specifics we can look into this for you.

What new components / features would you like to see, can you provide a list?

Dear BenJ,

I wrote many things in my previous posts in this topic why I feel like this.

The reason I feel disappointed in the way FC has evolved and what I hoped that would be better in V8 is written above.

Why in this forum? I'm affraid that with V8, V7 won't be upgraded in the way I hoped that would happen when I bought V7.
If this is the same with V8, I don't think I will look into buying V8.
For me as a hobbyist FC is becoming expensive while there are other alternatives that get the job done.

Maybe this is a part of your market that could be served better. Hobbyists and "makers".
I'm sticking with my V7 for now.

I will make a list of some components that are popular in the Arduino-world.
My goal is to convince Matrix to focus on expanding it's view to what is popular right now.
Not the rare and hard-to-get components, but the easy-to-get-via-cheap-Chinese-webshops components and boards.

[Benj]

Hello,

Ok brilliant let us know when you've got a list and I'd be happy to go through it.

As a maker myself I am all for providing support to the community.