Hi,

Which board are you using?

Thanks

Thanks for the info

Arduino 1.5 allows libraries to be assigned a list of supported architectures.

If you switch to, for example, the Arduino Due you will see that SoftwareSerial disappears from the list of available Core libraries. This is because SoftwareSerial is defined to be for avr chips and not 32 bit sam chips.

This is one major change of the Arduino 1.5 beta which has been re-worked a few times but should now be stable. 

Question

Does the library show up and compile okay in the arduino ide when the pololu is selected?

Based on your answer we will know if we have to change a file in the arduino 1.5 beta or a vm change to fix the issue.

Thanks

Okay thanks

As I said it has been a fast moving area in Arduino beta and we can use your example for some final tweaks to visual micro in the next release.

For now you can navigate to the SoftwareSerial library folder [arduinoide]\hardware\arduino\avr\libraries\SoftwareSerial and move it to [arduinoide]\hardware\arduino\libraries\SoftwareSerial

Then in Visual Micro click "tools>visual micro>reload toolchains" or re-start the ide.

Alternatively use the latest Arduino 1.0.6 release instead of the beta which should contain the same functionality for your board.

I hope this helps and thanks for the heads up that non-standard arduino hardware fails to find architecture specific libraries.

Oh sorry I didn't realize that the library was not only in the architecture specific folder but also contains a library.properties text using another new arduino format to specify architectures (applies to lib menu items).

1) edit the library.properties file with a text editor (notepad) and change 

architectures=avr 

to

architectures=* 

Thanks

Oh I was looking at a more recent version of the arduino beta than you. I just checked 1.5.7 and it does not have a properties file in the SoftwareSerial folder.

Sorry I will have to try it out over the next few days I am seeing all the std ide/libraries for my custom boards.

Out of interest if you use the "tools>visual micro>platform explorer" what are the names shown for your board type in the list and does softwareserial exist under "all libraries"?

what happens if you move the library to "mydocument\arduino\libraries"? Does it appear on the "User" library menu instead of "Core"?

Please give me a link to the custom core you have installed for the board so I can see what format it is. Thanks

No not needed, ignore the library properties thanks

Thanks for the link.

In have downloaded and tested here are my results.

1) Arduino 1.0.x release
The custom hardware is in Arduino Ide 1.0 format. The software serial library works fine in Visual Micro when using a standard Arduino 1.0.6 configuration.

2) Arduino 1.5.x beta

As mentioned there is a bug in visual micro that is not finding the libraries in arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/libraries for 1.0 format hardware definitions in the 1.5 ide.

As you can see Arduino is a bit confusing with versions at the moment but don't blame me

I was able to see and use the softwareSerial library by moving it to various locations such as ArduinoIDE\Libraries. 

Note: In my testing the "tools>vm>reload toolchains" did not immediately refresh the libs menu I had to switch board and back again or restart the ide.

Solution in 1.5

I suggest copying all the libs from arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/libraries to Documents\Arduino\hardware\pololu\avr\libraries

This will surely work or as mentioned earlier use the release version of the arduino ide 1.0.6

fixed in dec 2014 releases