Simplicity Studio provides functionality to work with external repositories, which can be useful for accessing example projects and collaborating with teams.
Simplicity Studio provides funtionality to work with external Git repositories and load, and show example applications in the Launcher view like any other example applications provided by the Silicon Labs SDKs and SDK extensions. The external repository should contain the example applications, and a templates.xml file which lists all of the provided applications.
The source files for this external repo created in this tutorial is available on GitHub here.
- your_git_repository
- example_a
- inc
- src
- config
- example_a.slcp
- README.md
- example_b
- inc
- src
- config
- example_b.slcp
- README.md
- templates.xml
- example_a
In this tutorial we are creating a simple external repository with an example application and a templates.xml file.
Create the following folder structure:
-your_git_repository
- external_repo_example_soc_app
- inc
- src external_repo_example_soc_app.slcp
Follow the guide below to create and validate an .slcp project files.
The sample external_repo_example_soc_app.slcp file:
project_name: external_repo_example_soc_app
quality: production
label: My Extension - SoC Example App (External Repo)
description: "This example project shows how to blink an LED in a bare-metal configuration. Or with a CLI command"
category: Example|My Extension
source:
- path: src/app.c
- path: src/main.c
- path: src/blink.c
include:
- path: inc
file_list:
- path: app.h
- path: blink.h
sdk_extension:
- id: my_extension
version: 1.0.0
component:
- id: sl_system
- id: device_init
- id: sleeptimer
- id: simple_led
instance: [led0, led1]
- id: cli
instance: [example]
- id: printf
- id: iostream_recommended_stream
- id: sample_component_info
from: my_extension
requires:
- name: iostream_retarget_stdio
define:
- name: DEBUG_EFM
readme:
- path: doc/readme.md
ui_hints:
highlight: readme.md
configuration:
- name: SL_BOARD_ENABLE_VCOM
value: "1"
- name: SL_CLI_LOCAL_ECHO
value: "(1)"
- name: SL_IOSTREAM_USART_VCOM_CONVERT_BY_DEFAULT_LF_TO_CRLF
value: "(1)"
- name: SL_IOSTREAM_USART_VCOM_FLOW_CONTROL_TYPE
value: "usartHwFlowControlNone"
- name: SL_IOSTREAM_EUSART_VCOM_CONVERT_BY_DEFAULT_LF_TO_CRLF
value: "(1)"
- name: SL_IOSTREAM_EUSART_VCOM_FLOW_CONTROL_TYPE
value: "eusartHwFlowControlNone"
- name: SAMPLE_APP_NAME
value: "Example Sample application"
template_contribution:
#------------------ CLI commands ---------------------
- name: cli_command
value:
name: toggle
handler: toggle_led
help: Toggle the LED1
tag:
- hardware:component:led:2+
- hardware:component:vcom
filter:
- name: "Device Type"
value: ["SoC"]
- name: "MCU"
value: ["32-bit MCU"]
- name: "Project Difficulty"
value: ["Beginner"]Copy the given source, header and readme files from the repository to the their defined folders in the sample application root folder.
In the example repository you will find a python script which will generates this xml file, under tools/template_xml_generator.
First step install the requirements.txt file for Python.
Install requirements
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txtGeneration CLI command, where \--extension-root is the path of your extension and \--output-directory is the path where the xml will be generated.
Example generator call
python3 main.py --extension-root external_repo_root_folder --output-directory my_outputThe script will look for all the \*.slcp files in your extension folder and create a template xml. You have to manually update two fields: boardCompatibility and partCompatibility. These fields are regex values, by default all boards and parts are enabled. Which means Simplicity Studio will show the application for all targets.
The sample templates.xml file:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ASCII'?>
<model:MDescriptors xmlns:model="http://www.silabs.com/ss/Studio.ecore">
<descriptors name="example_app" label="My Extension - SoC Example App (External Repo)" description="This example project shows how to blink an LED in a bare-metal configuration. Or with a CLI command">
<properties key="namespace" value="template.uc"/>
<properties key="keywords" value="universal\ configurator"/>
<properties key="solutionReferenceId" value="external_repo_example_soc_app.external_repo_example_soc_app.slcp"/>
<properties key="projectFilePaths" value="external_repo_example_soc_app\external_repo_example_soc_app.slcp"/>
<properties key="readmeFiles" value="doc/readme.md"/>
<properties key="boardCompatibility" value=".* com.silabs.board.none"/>
<properties key="partCompatibility" value=".*"/>
<properties key="ideCompatibility" value="iar-embedded-workbench makefile-ide simplicity-ide visual-studio-code"/>
<properties key="toolchainCompatibility" value="gcc iar segger"/>
<properties key="category" value="Example|My Extension"/>
<properties key="quality" value="PRODUCTION"/>
<properties key="stockConfigCompatibility" value="com.silabs.ss.framework.project.toolchain.core.default"/>
<properties key="filters" value="Device\ Type|SoC MCU|32-bit\ MCU Project\ Difficulty|Beginner"/>
</descriptors>
</model:MDescriptors>Add and commit your changes to your git repository:
git add *
git commit -m "First example application"Now you have a Git repository which contains an example application. This repository is ready to use as an external repo in Simplicity Studio.
- Go to Preferences > Simplicity Studio > External Repos
- Here you can add, edit, and delete repos
- To add a repo, you first clone it and then select the branch, tag, or commit to add
- The default branch is usually "master" or "main"
- Once added, these repos will appear under the "EXAMPLE PROJECTS & DEMOS" tab in the Launcher
- You can filter by the repo name (e.g., "bluetooth_applications" or "platform_applications") to see relevant examples
- Click CREATE on a project to generate a new application from the selected template