Embedded World: Segger releases AppWizard for GUI design

AppWizard comes with its own built-in resource management capabilities and facilitates the use of emWin’s core functions, such as the rendering of animations, language management and widgets.

The program includes what the firm is calling the ‘what you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) editor, which allows engineers to design application interfaces, along with their related interactions and events, and see, without exporting the file, what these applications will actually look like.

AppWizard also integrates a play mode for easy testing of created applications in a simulated environment. Pressing F5 runs the current state of the application, just like debugging in an IDE.

The construction of embedded GUI applications with AppWizard requires little prior experience with emWin or even C-programming, Segger claims. The application’s behaviour is defined by applying signals and slots/interactions.

With its integrated resource management, all resources (such as fonts and images) are automatically converted to internal formats and added to the project. Resources can be stored in internal memory or offloaded to external media.

Support for board level packages enables AppWizard to generate ready-to-use target applications. These packages include the setup of the target hardware and display for a seamless start, as well as Segger’s emFile file system to make placing of resources on an SD card or some other form of external memory simple.

AppWizard outputs a bundle of C source files to work with any system with at least 32kByte of RAM and 128kByte of ROM.

An MS Visual Studio simulation project enables debugging of the application and the adding of custom code to be carried out even if the final target hardware is not (yet) available.

“The new AppWizard streamlines the whole process of constructing even complex graphical applications, without the need for solid knowledge of how emWin works,” states Jörg Ehrle, product manager for emWin at Segger.

Joe Yu, vice president and general manager of the low-power MPU & MCU product line at NXP says “emWin’s easy-to-use API, efficiency and documentation are outstanding and easy to use within our MCUXpresso SDK packages.”