This tutorial shows how to adapt the Qt Creator IDE for developing and comfortable debugging XPCC projects on STM32 microcontrollers.

In this tutorial I use xpccs blink example project for the STM32F072B Discovery board. If you want to use a STM32F3 or STM32F4 microcontroller, create a OpenOCD provider, Device and Kit for each microcontroller family.

Installation

Install Qt creator version 4.0 or above and the GCC ARM Embedded toolchain including GDB.

sudo dnf install qtcreator arm-none-eabi-gcc arm-none-eabi-gdb

Global Qt creator setup

Enable Bare Metal plugin

Help -> About Plugins…

Enable BareMetal plugin

Enable the BareMetal plugin and restart Qt creator.

Code Style

Go to Options dialog: Tools -> Options…

Go to Tab C++, create a copy of the Qt [builtin] code style, name it XPCC and click Edit….

Code Style

Set Tab policy to Tabs only, save and exit.

GDB and OpenOCD global configuration

In Build & Run and sub-tab Debuggers click Add to add the arm-none-eabi-gdb debugger to Qt creator: Create new `arm-none-eabi-gdb` debugger

Go to tab Bare Metal and select Add -> OpenOCD. Add new OpenOCD GDB server provider

Use the following settings: OpenOCD GDB server provider settings Configuration file is /usr/share/openocd/scripts/board/stm32f0discovery.cfg for STM32F0 (on Fedora 23).

For STM32F3 use /usr/share/openocd/scripts/board/stm32f3discovery.cfg, for STM32F4 /usr/share/openocd/scripts/board/stm32f4discovery.cfg.

For the next step go to the Devices tab and Add… a new Bare Metal Device

Add a new device

Use the following settings:

Qt creator device settings

Again, go to tab Build & Run, sub-tab Kits and click Add to add a new so called Kit.

Settings for the STM32F0 Kit

  • Device type: Bare Metal Device
  • Device: STM32F0 (the device we created previously)
  • Do not care about the compiler
  • Debugger: ARM none EABI GDB
  • Qt version: None

Click Ok.

XPCC project setup

Change to project folder: cd src/RCA/2016/xpcc/examples/stm32f072_discovery/blink/

Run scons qtcreator to generate the Qt creator project files fpr the xpcc project.

scons: Reading SConscript files ...
scons: done reading SConscript files.
scons: Building targets ...
Template: '/home/raphael/src/RCA/2016/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.creator.in' to 'blink.creator'
Template: '/home/raphael/src/RCA/2016/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.config.in' to 'blink.config'
Template: '/home/raphael/src/RCA/2016/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.files.in' to 'blink.files'
Template: '/home/raphael/src/RCA/2016/xpcc/templates/qtcreator/project.includes.in' to 'blink.includes'
scons: done building targets.

Open project with Qt creator: File -> Open File or Project (Ctrl-O)

Select `*.creator` file

The view should be like this

Select the Projects view from the left side.

First, click Add Kit -> STM32F0, then remove the by default created Desktop using the icon to the right of Desktop -> Remove Kit. Remove the desktop kit

Next go to the Build Settings and remove all existing Build Steps and Clean Steps and add a new Custom Process Step build step with the command scons and argument program.

Likewise add a Clean Step using a Custon Process Step with command scons and argument -c.

Qt creator project build settings

Switch to Run Settings and select Run on GDB server or hardware debugger as Run Configuration. Select the *.elf-file as executable. Qt creator project run settings

Now you can compile, program and debug your xpcc application comfortably in Qt creator.