Qt Creator integration#

This tutorial shows how to adapt the Qt Creator IDE for comfortable developing and debugging of xpcc projects on STM32 microcontrollers.

This tutorial uses xpcc’s hello-world example project of our getting-started-with-xpcc repository for the STM32F4 Discovery board.

Installation#

Install Qt Creator version 4.0 or above.

# On Fedora 22 and up
sudo dnf install qtcreator
# On OS X
brew cask install qtcreator

Global setup#

Enable Bare Metal plugin#

OS X: Qt Creator → About Plugins...
Linux: Help → About Plugins...

Enable the BareMetal plugin and restart Qt Creator.

Code Style#

OS X: Qt Creator → Preferences...
Linux: Go to Options dialog: Tools → Options...

Go to Tab C++, create a copy of the Qt [builtin] code style, name it xpcc and click Edit....

Set Tab policy to Tabs only, save and exit.

Add debugger#

In Build & Run and sub-tab Debuggers click Add to add the arm-none-eabi-gdb debugger to Qt Creator:

Qt Creator requires the debugger to support Python scripting. If you use the precompiled arm-none-eabi toolchain from ARM you need to use arm-none-eabi-gdb-py here!

For Linux distributions that ship the toolchain themselves and have Python scripting enabled by default, you can use /usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb (without the -py).

Add OpenOCD server#

Go to tab Bare Metal and select Add → OpenOCD.

Use the following settings:

Startup mode: Startup in TCP/IP Mode
Executable file: Path to OpenOCD binary: /usr/local/bin/openocd (OS X), or /usr/bin/openocd (Linux)
Root scripts directory: Absolute path to OpenOCD script directory: /usr/local/share/openocd/scripts (OS X), or /usr/share/openocd/scripts (Linux)
Configuration File: board/stm32f4discovery.cfg

If you want to use other targets, create an OpenOCD provider, Device and Kit for each or them. Have a look at the OpenOCD script directory to find a configuration file for your target.

Add target device#

For the next step go to the Devices tab and Add... a new Bare Metal Device. Use the following settings:

Again, go to tab Build & Run, sub-tab Kits and click Add to add a new so called Kit. Settings for the STM32F4-DISCO Kit

Device type: Bare Metal Device
Device: STM32F4-DISCO (the device we just created)
Compiler: Irrelevant, we won't use it.
Debugger: arm-none-eabi-gdb
Qt version: None

Click Ok.

xpcc project setup#

Check out the getting started repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/roboterclubaachen/getting-started-with-xpcc.git

Change to the project folder and run scons qtcreator to generate the Qt creator project files for the xpcc project:

cd getting-started-with-xpcc/hello-world
scons qtcreator

scons: Reading SConscript files ...
scons: done reading SConscript files.
scons: Building targets ...
Template: 'getting-started-with-xpcc/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.creator.in' to 'hello-world.creator'
Template: 'getting-started-with-xpcc/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.config.in' to 'hello-world.config'
Template: 'getting-started-with-xpcc/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.files.in' to 'hello-world.files'
Template: 'getting-started-with-xpcc/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.includes.in' to 'hello-world.includes'
scons: done building targets.

Open project with Qt Creator: File → Open File or Project

Select the Projects view from the Mode Selector on the left side (Window → Show Mode Selector if not visible).

First, click Add Kit → STM32F4-DISCO, then remove the created Default using the icon to the right of it: Default → Remove Kit.

Next go to the Build Settings and remove all existing Build Steps and Clean Steps and:

add a new Custom Process Step build step with command scons and argument program.
add a new Custom Process Step clean step with command scons and argument -c.
add a custom PATH to the System Environment, if you need to.

Switch to Run Settings and select Run on GDB server or hardware debugger as Run Configuration. Select the *.elf-file as executable. Qt creator project run settings

Congratulations, you can now compile, program and debug your xpcc application comfortably in Qt Creator.