Is there a way to take a v5blocks file and import it into VexCode Pro? Or, what is the best practice for exporting from VexCode V5 so the C files are available to Pro?
VEXcode Pro V5 cannot directly import .v5blocks files – but if you convert the blocks project to text first you have some options.
There is an “import” menu item in VEXcode Pro V5, but it’s for importing projects created in the old VEX Coding Studio or VEXcode Pro V5 itself – it does not appear that VEXcode Pro V5 can import .v5cpp projects created in non-pro VEXcode V5. (although that would be cool!)
C++ code generated from blocks in VEXcode V5 should work mostly unmodified in VEXcode Pro – just start a new project, recreate the device configuration from VEXcode in VEXcode Pro, and paste in the converted C++ code in place of the empty main. Be sure to leave in the #include "vex.h" and using namespace vex; at the top of the file. And some tweaking of the code may be necessary – some of the blocks programs I tried converting contained calls to functions that were undefined in VEXcode Pro, such as calibrateDrivetrain.
That said, if the blocks project you are converting is even moderately complicated it’s probably worth writing an equivalent C++ program from scratch – the generated C++ code mirrors the structure of the original blocks project very closely (hat blocks, etc.), which is not necessarily how you would want to structure a c++ program from scratch.
4 Likes
My intent was to allow new students to start out with blocks and switch to Pro when it became necessary. In blocks when switching to text, you cannot view the robot-config.cpp which would at least allow you to cut/paste between the versions.
That’s a good point and great idea. Thanks.
2 Likes