Overview of the possibilities of Qt Creator 4.12 and QBS 1.16 for programming microcontrollers

Improvements in Qt Creator

1. Integration with Keil MDK is added.
   
   The main new improvement is integration with the debugger from Keil MDK v5 . Keil provides a UVSC proprietary interface for integrating the debugger with third-party client applications. As a layer, they provide a dynamic library (which comes with Keil itself) and an API description for it.
   
   Work with this debugger is available only when the BareMetal plugin is enabled, which is activated through the menu "Help -> About Plugins -> Device Support -> BareMetal".
   
   The following debuggers are currently supported:
   

   Debugger	Architecture	Description
   Simulator	ARM	Allows you to simulate the operation of the MCU in the absence of a hardware debugger.
   ST-Link	ARM	Allows you to debug target MCUs from STMicroelectronics.

   
   
   The following microcontrollers are currently supported:
   

   MCU	Architecture	Note
   STM32 by STMicroelectronics	ARM	At least it works exactly with the STM32F1x and STM32F4x.

   
   Now the Keil debugger is automatically detected on the tab "Tools -> Options -> Kits -> Debugegrs -> Auto-detected".
   
   For example, for me it looks like this:
   
   
   
   So, the basic steps to configure the kit for compilation and debugging by the Keil toolkit are as follows:
   
   
   1. Creation of a new bare-metal device.
      
      Start creating a new device in "Tools -> Options -> Devices -> Add -> Bare Metal Device" and set any name for this device (let it be stm32f4), and leave the debug server provider field “None”:
      
      
      
   2. .
      
      «Manage» :
      
      
      
      «Add» «UVision ST-Link»:
      
      
      
      , 'tools.ini', Keil:
      
      
      
      : Keil-, , .
      
      , , , «Target device -> Manage»:
      
      
      
      ( STM32F407 STM32F4DISCOVERY):
      
      
      
      : Keil «DFP» PackInstaller.
      
      , , «Target driver -> Manage»:
      
      
      
      «ST-Link Debugger»:
      
      
      
      :
      
      
      
   3. .
      
      «Tools -> Options -> Kits -> Add» (C C++), . , Qt «None»:
      
      
      
   
   Now you can compile and debug projects using QBS (as you know, at the moment all this is “tailored” specifically for QBS).
   
   For example, you can open the finished QBS example for STM32F4DISCOVERY and blink the LED.
   
   
   
   What is supported:
   
   
   • Start / stop the debugger.
   • Debugging Steps Step-in / out / over / instruction.
   • Display and edit local variables.
   • Display and editing variables in the Watch window.
   • Stack tracking.
   • Display and edit standard registers (not peripheral).
   • Setting breakpoints.
   
   What else is NOT supported:
   
   
   • View / edit memory.
   • Display and edit peripheral registers.
   
   What are the errors:
   
   
   • : , 10 , «» Qt Creator. UVSC. ( , ) Qt Creator.
   • 'main' (, .). UVSC.
   • ( ). UVSC.
   • 'step-into' 'step-over' 'main' : . 'main' Qt Creator 'step-instruction', . UVSC.
   • . UVSC.
   
   More information about the current state can be found here .
   
   Note: Naturally, I wrote about these errors found in UVSC in support of Keil, but they ignore all this, because I am using the "evaluation" version of Keil. They say that, sorry, buy and then we'll talk. But this is nonsense! Why should I buy obviously non-working software!
   
   Of course, do not judge strictly, this is just the first step ... As they say: dashing trouble began.
   
   
2. Added new debuggers for GDB
   
   Added support for the following new debuggers:
   

   Debugger	A type
   Segger j-link	Gdb
   EBLink	Gdb

   
   
   I will not describe their settings in detail here, because everything is simple there.
   

Improvements in QBS

What's next