Documentation Difficulties

Archive
1

Hi,

I have a Fez Cobra II card and I wanted to write a simple app that access the SDCard.

My first port of call was to read the boards documentation page here:
https://www.ghielectronics.com/docs/48/fez-cobra-ii-developer

It has a piece of code at the bottom which explains how to mount the SDCard drive:

// Determine if an SD card is inserted…
if (PersistentStorage.DetectSDCard())
ps = new PersistentStorage(“SD”);

// …and from here use the SD card as normal

I tried typing this into a new gadgeteer application but it did not recognise the PersistentStorage class. Ok, I thought, I need to add a namespace to my app which defines that class.

I searched the web for ‘PersistentStorage GHI Electronics’ and found this documentation page with the class description:
http://www.ghielectronics.com/downloads/NETMF/Library%20Documentation%20v4.1/html/54b37f26-0981-f721-57fe-1cefaf27a246.htm

The only problem is that the page only appears for about 1 second before it’s replaced with a white screen showing nothing.

I then managed to grab a screen dump of the page during the 1 second that it was active and it said that the PersistentStorage exists in the GHIElectronics.NetMF.IO namespace which is in a DLL file of the same name.

I searched for this file on my machine but could not find it.

I seem to have hit 3 problems:
The example on the mainboard page does not work when cut and paste into a new project.
The GHI documentation pages do not display correctly.
There are references to namespaces that are not part of the GHI installation package.

I think the idea of the gadgeteer electronics is a great one but if every time you want to do something new with it you have to jump through hoops to find some example code that works, I think people will get put off using it.

Sorry, just venting my frustrations.

2

@ Slade - Your feedback is valuable to us. Sorry about your frustration. We are working hard to get all the documentation up to date.

@ andre.m - LOL I was typing in the same response when your reply came-up. :clap:

3

Hi Andre,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I was looking at older documentation then. I assume that the GHIElectronics namespaces are now replaced with the GHI.Premium namespaces? I’ll try to remember that in future.

I am using IE but the compatibility button should appear if it finds a website that needs it. It doesn’t appear for the GHI documentation pages so I can’t put it in compatibility mode. Does it work with other browsers? Maybe I could use something else.

Don’t worry guys, I’m not going to give up on this easily!!!

4

@ andre.m - per Gus’ comment in the thread you referenced, the docs are auto-generated with a tool out of our control. That said, I’ll approach folks on Monday about two potential work-arounds we might be able to use to fix the problem. As to the suggestion about adding info to links I’ll look into that.

5

I’m using IE11 on Windows 8. I’ve not seen a compatibility button on this version.

6

Is there a way in VS to add the references without a hunt for them?

I programme in Android using Android Studio and if hit ALT+ENTER it adds the imports for the function calls etc.

Would be nice to have something like this in VS. It’s very frustrating even as an experienced user trying to locate the right reference and avoid including something that is not used.

7

Thanks @ andre.m. It’s now working find and added to my favourites.

8

The page comes up fine on FF, just FYI.

B