Getting Started
  1. Download Arduino IDE to upload your creations to your board.
  2. Download all libraries to Arduino IDE so the files that CodeBoard exports can properly execute. This only needs to be done the first time you set up your Arduino IDE.
    1. AsyncDelay - in Arduino IDE Library Manager - by Steve Marple
      1. Here is a good tutorial if you need help installing libraries in Arduino IDE
    2. WiFi - in Arduino IDE Library Manager - by Arduino
      1. Here is a good tutorial if you need help installing libraries in Arduino IDE
    3. ESPAsyncWebServer
      1. Can be downloaded here
      2. This .zip file needs to be added to Arduino IDE manually. Here is a tutorial how to do that.
    4. CodeBoard
      1. You will need our custom CodeBoard library also installed through .zip
      2. You can download the file here
    5. SPIFFS filesystem
      1. The SPIFFS filesystem also needs to be manually downloaded, but loaded differently.
      2. Here is a tutorial for downloading SPIFFS
  3. Connect your ESP32 board to the CodeBoard
    1. CodeBoard was designed to try to accommodate all standard ESP32 boards. The ESP32 provided with CodeBoard is the DevKit v1 and uses the GPIO pin 27 as the standard; however if you are connecting a different board you will have to either change the data pin when you export your file or you will have to use jumper wires to connect your pin 27 to the proper port.
Building Your Custom Animation
  1. There are 3 parts to every animation
    1. Global initialization
      1. If you want to track any variables between the setup() and loop() functions you should declare them here.
      2. You can also declare functions here.
    2. Initial setup() function
      1. This is where you should setup your CodeBoard for first static appearance.
    3. Continuous loop() function
      1. You pass an integer in milliseconds and this code will loop for every millisecond increment.
  2. You can export your code to play on your CodeBoard. This is an ino file that can be compiled and uploaded to your board using Arduino IDE.
Building Your Custom Menu
  1. This will be the menu you use to control your CodeBoard in person. Each button created in the menu will be linked to a code animation you have saved.
  2. Once you are satisfied with your created menu you can export it. Be sure to link the proper data pin that your ESP is using as well as whatever hostname you would like for your menu. CodeBoard will take care of linking all the proper code together. You must open the Arduino project that has been exported for you in the Arduino IDE.
  3. You will need to enter your wifi credentials into the code (this is done so you know we aren’t stealing your details).
  4. You will need to go to Tools > ESP32 Sketch Data Upload (in order to upload your custom html and css files that are in the data directory). If you find that you are getting the Error: SPIFFS file cannot be uploaded then try changing the Board that is being used in your Arduino IDE (for example try changing it to “Heltec WiFi LoRa 32”, often different boards will have easier times uploading the SPIFFS data and will not make a difference to your code being ran).
  5. Upload the program and the Serial monitor will output the port that it has connected to. You can access your menu by either going to this port or the host name you gave to your CodeBoard (http://hostname or http://CodeBoard by default).