How to export projects in ChibiStudio

Introduction

This article is a step-by-step guide on how to export a working project from ChibiStudio.

The main goal is to zip and share a project with someone knowing that they will be able to use it on their own machine. This guide assumes you have a working project in your Project Explorer.

Step by step procedure

Cleaning the project

To export a project you should begin by cleaning the project. To do so, right click on the project and select Clean Project.

A new task will start in the console and when completed the build folder will be deleted from the project. The main reason to perform this task is to remove build files that can be easily be regenerated in ChibiStudio as the size of those files can amount to dozens of MBs.

Locate the project in Windows explorer

The next step is to locate the project by right clicking on the project and selecting Properties. In the newly opened window, you can find the project path under Location. To proceed directly to that folder, click on the Show in System Explorer button.

Compressing and sharing

It is now possible to compress the Project folder and simply share it.

Using this package in another ChibiStudio

To use this package on another ChibiStudio it is necessary to unpack the demo in the default Workspace folder and import it in ChibiStudio.

Sharing the binary only

It is possible to export the project without sharing your source code and potentially valuable IP. In this case you should only share the firmware as a binary file. Once your project is built, you can find the binary file in the build folder typically called ch.bin.

This file can be flashed on your microcontroller using a debugger or a bootloader. If you are using the SDP-K1 the easiest way is to drag and drop ch.bin or ch.hex onto the driver named SDP-K1 that appears in This PC when you connect the evaluation board to your PC.