upload.tool not used in custom boards.txt?

Question

I've created a custom board in boards.txt and changed the upload.tool to a nonsense value, and yet when I do an upload the IDE still calls avrdude.

For example, In boards.txt I've changed the line...

tile.upload.tool=avrdude

...to...

tile.upload.tool=nogood

...and added these lines to platform.txt...

# NOGOOD programmer
tools.nogood.cmd="dir"
tools.nogood.program.pattern="dir" 
tools.nogood.upload.pattern="dir" 

...and reloaded the IDE and hit upload.. and it still runs AVRDUDE.

(Note that my board ID is tile)

I've verified that I am editing the correct boards.txt by changing the cores key to nogood and this does generate an error.

Is boardid.upload.tool not the right place to change the recipe called when upload is hit?

How/where does the boardid.upload.tool=toolname key in boards.txt get mapped to the tools.toolname.upload.pattern key in platforms.txt?

I am using Arduino IDE version 1.8.3.

The custom boards.txt is in the directory Arduino\hardware\Move38\avr.

This full custom platform package is here...

https://github.com/bigjosh/Move38-Arduino-Platform

Thanks!

Answer 1

From https://github.com/bigjosh/Move38-Arduino-Platform#programmers:

Since there is no bootloader in a tile, all code must be programmed rather than downloaded.

When you do an "Upload Using Programmer", the tool is specified in the {programmerID}.program.tool property in programmers.txt. The {boardID}.upload.tool value is only used for a standard upload.

Since programmers.txt is not in your hardware package, this makes it very inconvenient to customize. What's worse is that the platform.txt associated with the selected programmer is used, rather than the one in your hardware package, for "Upload Using Programmer". For this reason, some popular hardware packages include their own copies of all standard programmers. The downside of this is it really clutters up the Tools> Programmer menu if you have multiple of these packages installed.

• bigjosh: Ugg. So ugly. Thanks for the authoritative answer - these are hard to come by in Arduino land! :)
• bigjosh: For future lookers, it does not seem like the {boardID}.upload.tool in platform.txt is always used for a standard upload. For example, it does not seem to be used if an upload.speed is not specified in boards.txt (even if the specified tool does not have a baudrate). It also does not seem to be used on OSX sometimes.

Answer 2

Custom tools for the Arduino build process are documented in the Boards Manager Package Index spec here...

https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/wiki/Arduino-IDE-1.6.x-package_index.json-format-specification#tools-definitions

So it would seem that it i not possible to use custom tools with a manually installed board since there is no package index file.

• bigjosh: This problem does not appear to be limited to only custom tools, it also seems to happen with built in tools like avrdude. :/

Answer 3

If you leave the protocol unset in the boards.txt, then the current version of the Ardunio IDE (1.8.12) will then use the program recipe rather than the upload recipe in platform.txt. The program recipe can use the {protocol} key to get the programmer selected in the IDE menus.

Relevant source in Arduino IDE SerialUploader.java...

if (usingProgrammer || prefs.get("upload.protocol") == null) {
 return uploadUsingProgrammer(buildPath, className);
}