Project Options

This window defines settings related to the current Flowcode project. The window can be viewed by selecting 'Project Options' in the 'Build' menu (Build > Project Options...).

These options allow you to customize your project and alter the fundamental functions of the project by changing the target chip, clock speed and simulation speed and even configure the chip itself by editing the configuration settings, you can also enable and configure the 'Debug Options' which allow the user to run in ICD mode and use ICT and analog monitoring as well as overriding the ICD pins.

Choose a Target

Choose a target for this flowchart

This tab allows you to select a target chip from all the currently supported devices by Flowcode. Users can select a new chip or change the chip from this menu.

Devices are shown via chip types and then by device types to allow you to easily find what device and chip you wish to target.

You can also choose 'Simulation Only' to create a simulation-only chip which will allow you to use a massive range of ports to connect to although you cannot download your flowchart program to a device, you can expand your options for simulation-only projects.

Project Description

Project title

Here users can give their project a title, this title will appear in the generated C code and in any of the documentation features of Flowcode.

Project description

Allows users to give a detailed description of the project. This information will appear in the generated C code and in any of the documentation features of Flowcode.

General Options

Target

Defines the microcontroller that the Flowcode compiled program will be run on.

Clock Speed

Must be set to match the hardware clock frequency so that delays and other timing critical features run at the correct speed on the hardware. Several options exist for the clock speed in the drop down menu however any value of clock speed can be entered directly into the text field.

Simulation Speed

Defines the speed of the flowchart simulation. Slowing down the simulation allows for flowchart icons to become highlighted as the simulation runs.

Use Supplementary Code

Allows any supplementary code to be included into the program. This is useful for including external C or Assembler files into your programs.

Auto Clear Watchdog

This is used to automatically clear the watchdog timer every time a component macro is called which will stop the target device from detecting a false stop condition and resetting.

Use #if in Constant Decisions

Uses the preprocessor to optimise the code in if / else blocks if a constant is used in the condition statement.

Configure

In this tab you can configure the chip in many ways, from simply setting the oscillator type to enabling and disabling advanced features such as brown out, watchdog timers, low voltage programming, read protection etc.

Refer to the device datasheet for details on the config settings and their function.

Write config on download

The option specifies if the config settings are added to the output hex file or not. If they are not added then the current config settings will be retained when reprogramming your device.

For a PIC, dsPIC etc the config memory is the same as the program memory and so the config can be reprogrammed again and again.

For an AVR the config memory can only be changed a few times and so the tick box allows you to disable the programming of the config settings when re-programming the same device multiple times.

Manually configuring the chip for PICmicros

See Selecting Compiler Options (PICmicro) for help with switching off the default configuration options.

Once you have disabled the default configuration options you can enter your own configuration data. For the PICmicro this data will be sent to the chip every time you perform a compile to chip operation.

An example configuration word for the PIC16 series is

0x2007, 0x3FFC

The 0x2007 is the location in memory of the configuration word and the 0x3FFC is the configuration word itself.