The PROS development team has been hard at work over this past summer to provide a multitude of improvements to PROS to provide you with the highest powered and most user-friendly coding environment for the Cortex to date. This update can be broken down into a variety of new features:
PROS for Atom
Atom is now the officially supported IDE of the PROS development team! We believe Atom will provide a much more pleasurable programming experience for new and experienced developers alike. It is more customizable, looks better, and has better syntax checking than Eclipse. The source is hosted at github.com/purduesigbots/pros-atom Check out some of the screenshots below:
If you would still like to use Eclipse, the kernel template is available on the legacy download site and can continue to be used.
JINX Graphical Debugger
JINX is the official debugging utility for use with PROS code. With JINX, you get to graph data, generate CSV files, send commands back to the cortex, and more, all from your browser of choice. JINX works by using a computer connected to the cortex via serial as the central hub of a webserver. Other computers and mobile devices on the network can then connect as clients and enjoy the use of the interactive features. You can view the JINX setup and user guide at github.com/purduesigbots/jinx.
Above: Example of JINX usage to map motor output to PWM value
Above: Example of JINX usage on a mobile device
PROS Command Line Interface
The PROS Command Line Interface was first introduced with PROS for Eclipse 1.6.0, but is now revamped. The CLI provides the infrastructure necessary to do high level PROS-specific tasks, such as creating projects and uploading code to the microcontroller, without the need for an IDE. You have the freedom to use whatever IDE you prefer (and then manually controlling flashing and building through the command line), although the PROS Development Team will officially support Atom. This release of the CLI also features VEXnet 2.0 flashing capability and a variety of bug fixes. The repository for the CLI is located at github.com/purduesigbots/pros-cli
PROS Kernel is now Open Source!
The PROS Development Team has always had the core mission of supporting the VEX community by providing a premier coding environment and unparalleled support for this environment. It has become increasingly apparent as the PROS user base has grown that releasing the PROS source code to the community fits with this mission. As a result, we’re pleased to announce that the PROS kernel is now freely available on GitHub under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Feel free to make modifications and share with others. If you find something to improve, please shoot us a pull request. The PROS Development Team appreciates the support of the incredibly skilled users in this community and we look forward to the future of PROS as a project backed by the VEX community as a whole. This repository is located at github.com/purduesigbots/pros
Additionally, we’ve exposed PROS’s inner I2C library for use with custom sensors, and we’re moving to a new versioning format that complies with semantic versioning. The next release of the PROS kernel will be tagged at 2.11.0. Within PROS going forward, the past kernel version 2b10 will be referred to as 2.10.0, but it is the same binary that we’ve previously released. As all of the upgrades found in 2.11.0 have already been tested for years, this kernel version can also be considered completely stable.
tl;dr - PROS is now open source and features a new IDE, a CLI, and a debugging environment.