Device Software Development Platform

This chapter examines a couple of features of the Device Software Development Platform (DSDP), an Eclipse project specifically focused on issues of embedded software development. The chapter started out by looking at how Eclipse handles software updates and installing extensions. Using update sites makes the process of extending Eclipse relatively painless and transparent because the update mechanism takes care of resolving any dependencies in the software the user want to install. Eclipse can be instructed to automatically check for new updates to installed software on a regular basis. DSDP itself is divided into several subprojects. The Remote System Explorer (RSE) is a collection of tools that allows you to work with resources such as files and folders on remote systems. Files can be copied to and from the remote system with a simple drag-and-drop paradigm, edit files directly on the remote system, and run and debug applications remotely. The Native Application Builder (NAB) enables the user to develop platform-independent graphical applications in an intuitive and graphical manner. NAB is an Eclipse wrapper for WideStudio/MWT, an open source project focused on developing platform independent graphical applications for embedded devices. The user can create and test application on the host environment initially, and then rebuild it for the appropriate target environment.