Preliminary Feedback

[The_YongGrand]

First of all, congratulations on the Necto IDE!

There is a major issue on this though:

There are no support for existing MikroE compilers. Some of us have spent a handsome amount of money on MikroE compilers and its products, and it's ridiculous to go and get another compiler and the IDE.

The current MikroE compilers which is built using Delphi isn't functioning well anymore on this kind of time. I struggled with compiling large program files for the ARM version and it repeatedly crashed for all the wrong reasons.

The Necto is a good substitute for this, but now it is geared to the new "MikroC AI compiler" which supports the MikroSDK and the what-nots, instead of the existing MikroC compilers.

I would strongly suggest this:

1.) Have the Necto IDE being sold separately and provide support for existing MikroE compilers (and VTFT).

2.) For people who have existing MikroE compilers, provide suitable discounts on the IDE without paying a premium or to buy another new compiler.

3.) Have the Necto IDE to also support more plugins (since it is built on QT framework??) so that users can customize their programming experience.

Providing more choices to get the compiler with a good price helps attracting purchases. Right now I don't think MikroE are doing that. It looks like this is putting off more customers in the future.

Please have the management and the development team look into this. Thank you.

[filip]

Hello The_YongGrand,

Thank you for your feedback, we appreciate your opinion regarding the NECTO Studio, I will try to clarify the details regarding the NECTO and the "classic" compilers.

There are no support for existing MikroE compilers. Some of us have spent a handsome amount of money on MikroE compilers and its products, and it's ridiculous to go and get another compiler and the IDE.

You can easily import and compile projects written in earlier versions of the compiler and they will work instantly. We have included the legacy library pack in the NECTO Studio installation, so you can utilize the library functionality in the new compiler with ease.

Please take look at the Importing legacy project topic in the Help file of the NECTO Studio.

The current MikroE compilers which is built using Delphi isn't functioning well anymore on this kind of time. I struggled with compiling large program files for the ARM version and it repeatedly crashed for all the wrong reasons.

One of the reasons why the NECTO Studio is introduced is to overcome the obstacles which the users encountered during the usage of the classic IDE. We have written it from the scratch and hopefully there won't be any major issues with it.

For example, in your case, the complex and large programs will be handled more efficiently, compiling only source file that have changed and using the multi-core features of the processors .

The Necto is a good substitute for this, but now it is geared to the new "MikroC AI compiler" which supports the MikroSDK and the what-nots, instead of the existing MikroC compilers.

If you were not using the mikroSDK in your project, you are not obliged to use it in the NECTO Studio either, the compiler is not forcing you in any way. On the other hand, it would really interesting if you can try using the mikroSDK, if not for more then just for testing purposes, we would like to hear your feedback.

I would strongly suggest this:

1.) Have the Necto IDE being sold separately and provide support for existing MikroE compilers (and VTFT).

2.) For people who have existing MikroE compilers, provide suitable discounts on the IDE without paying a premium or to buy another new compiler.

3.) Have the Necto IDE to also support more plugins (since it is built on QT framework??) so that users can customize their programming experience.

We didn't forget our existing users, therefore we have provided the following discounts :

1. Users who purchased license in 2019. will get free of charge license for NECTO.

2. Users who purchased license prior to 2019. will have the following offer during the promotional period :
- A 80% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in December of 2019,
- A 60% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in January of 2020,
- A 40% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in February of 2020.

Providing more choices to get the compiler with a good price helps attracting purchases. Right now I don't think MikroE are doing that. It looks like this is putting off more customers in the future.

I'm sure that the price policy will suite the wide range of our customers. This is why introduced the free beta version for the period three months without any limitations, so you can download, try and fully test the NECTO Studio possibilities.

This is a big step for our customers and we are sure that the whole experience in using NECTO Studio will be the key factor in adopting it as the new "go to" compiler for the embedded world.

Regards,
Filip.

[The_YongGrand]

Hello Filip,

You can easily import and compile projects written in earlier versions of the compiler and they will work instantly. We have included the legacy library pack in the NECTO Studio installation, so you can utilize the library functionality in the new compiler with ease.

Please take look at the Importing legacy project topic in the Help file of the NECTO Studio.

What I meant was, example: I have the MikroC ARM compiler already, and I have the Necto Studio. If I want to use the benefits of the Necto after the 3 month trial period, I have to purchase another MikroC AI ARM compiler plus the studio itself. It could be a very expensive, unless if you give higher discounts to customers with previous licenses.

1. Users who purchased license in 2019. will get free of charge license for NECTO.

2. Users who purchased license prior to 2019. will have the following offer during the promotional period :
- A 80% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in December of 2019,
- A 60% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in January of 2020,
- A 40% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in February of 2020.

Thanks for the clarification.

So I have actually a MikroC ARM compiler (boxed copy with license card) purchased from a local retailer. Will any of the discounts count as well? How could we prove to you that I purchased this from the retailer on November 2019? This is a legit copy and I can PM you the details on that purchase.

Another one issue:

I cannot change the MCU after importing the project. It locks me to the MikroE Fusion board when actually I'm working on one of these STM32 boards. Have your team look into that too.

[OT]

Hello The_YongGrand,
1. Users who purchased license in 2019. will get free of charge license for NECTO.

2. Users who purchased license prior to 2019. will have the following offer during the promotional period :
- A 80% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in December of 2019,
- A 60% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in January of 2020,
- A 40% discount on the Perpetual License if purchased in February of 2020.

Regards,
Filip.

This is a quite unrealistic. The discounts are not announced anywhere but this thread as far as I can see and currently Necto is only available for ARM and the C language at the moment. So are we expected to switch language and microcontroller lines just to get the discount? dsPIC pascal compilers are only listed to become available in 2021+.

We now has the answer to why we effectively have not been supported with fixes to even the simplest bugs these last years that has been repeatedly reported over several generations of compilers. ME has been using the time they should have used to fix our bugs to create a whole new set of development tools that we have to pay for. So while support personnel in the fora has been coming with empty promises of fixes, they have well known it will not happen as resources have been used on this new project.

Also it will be completely unrealistic to expect support for the old compilers now, but please tell me otherwise. When ME have not been able to support even the old sets of compilers, how can they take the load of adding the new ones?

Unless there is a permanent offer to upgrade with minimal costs that is not time limited for users of the old compilers/VTFT, this will be a breach of contract for the licence conditions for the old compilers that we bought with lifetime support, as they will in practice be abandoned and not be supported any longer.

[OT]

Well to see what this was about I installed it in a fairly fresh Win7 VM.
Result: It would not even start, complaining about a missing DLL:



Edit: The missing file was part of the C++ framework. A windows update fixed the problem.

[The_YongGrand]

Also it will be completely unrealistic to expect support for the old compilers now, but please tell me otherwise. When ME have not been able to support even the old sets of compilers, how can they take the load of adding the new ones?

I agree - they should have remained with the old set of compilers instead of coming up with the separate "MikroC AI" compiler. I do not understand why the compilers must be separate when all that can be added on to the current line of the compilers.

I do not have problems with the compilers, but the IDE should be at least in the lowest cost or free. I know I'm making an unrealistic demand - it looks like the IDE is based on the QT framework which is open source, and the editor is based on the "Kate".

[rajkovic]

Hello Filip,

So I have actually a MikroC ARM compiler (boxed copy with license card) purchased from a local retailer. Will any of the discounts count as well? How could we prove to you that I purchased this from the retailer on November 2019? This is a legit copy and I can PM you the details on that purchase.

Each customer that has the license for the PRO compiler will be entitled to a discount; you should receive mail with instructions on how to proceed. The dongle customer can also use discount and keep dongle active.
Do not worry; we intend to give the best possible option for all our customers and all our compilers.

[rajkovic]

This is a quite unrealistic. The discounts are not announced anywhere but this thread as far as I can see and currently Necto is only available for ARM and the C language at the moment. So are we expected to switch language and microcontroller lines just to get the discount? dsPIC pascal compilers are only listed to become available in 2021+.

Each compiler AI that gets release will have same treatment so the discount will be possible for anyone who has corresponding PRO license and for matching AI compiler when it becomes available.

We now has the answer to why we effectively have not been supported with fixes to even the simplest bugs these last years that has been repeatedly reported over several generations of compilers. ME has been using the time they should have used to fix our bugs to create a whole new set of development tools that we have to pay for. So while support personnel in the fora has been coming with empty promises of fixes, they have well known it will not happen as resources have been used on this new project.
Also it will be completely unrealistic to expect support for the old compilers now, but please tell me otherwise. When ME have not been able to support even the old sets of compilers, how can they take the load of adding the new ones?

OT, I know it seems like that, let me try to bring the full story to you.
We have aging technology and large codebase for PRO compiler IDE; technical debt has been growing in the past five years and reached
the level where any change has become hard to make even harder to test and not to break the whole IDE. Also, we hit the wall, and some things were not possible at all like Linux and Mac support, high-resolution displays... It was hard decision to make and even harder to implement.
we had release of
6.1 and 6.2 in lat 12 months and we plan to have update soon, among other things
We had to put effoer on both side.

Reason why we decided to change everything is becouse old code and technology we have used
were bad for us and bad for our customers. We are aware that changes are painful for both sides and there will be frustration at being but firmly believe that in the long run, this is good decision.

[OT]

This is a quite unrealistic. The discounts are not announced anywhere but this thread as far as I can see and currently Necto is only available for ARM and the C language at the moment. So are we expected to switch language and microcontroller lines just to get the discount? dsPIC pascal compilers are only listed to become available in 2021+.

Each compiler AI that gets release will have same treatment so the discount will be possible for anyone who has corresponding PRO license and for matching AI compiler when it becomes available.

We now has the answer to why we effectively have not been supported with fixes to even the simplest bugs these last years that has been repeatedly reported over several generations of compilers. ME has been using the time they should have used to fix our bugs to create a whole new set of development tools that we have to pay for. So while support personnel in the fora has been coming with empty promises of fixes, they have well known it will not happen as resources have been used on this new project.
Also it will be completely unrealistic to expect support for the old compilers now, but please tell me otherwise. When ME have not been able to support even the old sets of compilers, how can they take the load of adding the new ones?

OT, I know it seems like that, let me try to bring the full story to you.
We have aging technology and large codebase for PRO compiler IDE; technical debt has been growing in the past five years and reached
the level where any change has become hard to make even harder to test and not to break the whole IDE. Also, we hit the wall, and some things were not possible at all like Linux and Mac support, high-resolution displays... It was hard decision to make and even harder to implement.
we had release of
6.1 and 6.2 in lat 12 months and we plan to have update soon, among other things
We had to put effort on both side.

Reason why we decided to change everything is because old code and technology we have used
were bad for us and bad for our customers. We are aware that changes are painful for both sides and there will be frustration at being but firmly believe that in the long run, this is good decision.

Thanks for your response. I am using the dsPIC Pascal compiler where the latest version is 7.1 so you must be writing about a different set of compilers. However because the project editor is unusable with 125% font scaling on my computer, I am using ver. 6.2.1 IDE with the 7.1 compiler and latest non-integrated version of VTFT. While I do understand the situation, considering that the Project Editor works in 6.2.1, it is beyond me why the forms from 6.2.1. cannot be modified and used with 7.1.x.

we had release of 6.1 and 6.2 in lat 12 months and we plan to have update soon, among other things
We had to put effort on both side.

Would you please restate that in relation to the dsPIC/PIC compilers.

I hope you did not thrash all of the business code of the old compilers/parsers and started from scratch! That would introduce a plethora of new bugs that has to be fixed - a lot more serious than IDE bugs, as it affects the final product.

Also a lot of us have projects that might just fit the memory of a chip. Any change that increases size of the compiled code could break an existing project.

BTW. I already see several problems related to font size in the new IDE, for instance see here, example with 125% font size:


Too much white space, Fixed column width for for "Visible" and "Locked" that does not adapt to font scaling.

Also see here:
viewtopic.php?f=249&t=75738

viewtopic.php?f=249&t=75737

There are a number of spelling mistakes, for instance "Programer" instead of "Programmer" several places.

After repeated broken promises in these fora that has alienated even your previously most eager supporters and Libstock code contributors, ME need to realize that it is going to take a lot to reinstate previous confidence and support from your most advanced and long term users. It is quite natural that any statement is met with a lot of skepticism. That will take doing, not only talking, and actually be open about what is happening in an honest way. I hope we see a way forward here.

[filip]

Hi,

We did not thrash the dsPIC or other compiler's code, due to the reason you stated. This applies to the IDE also, so we can do some of the necessary fixes (like the one with the Project Editor in 7.1.x.)

As for the issue with the font scaling and spelling mistakes in the NECTO studio, we have observed this already and it will be addressed shortly.

This is what the beta version is intended for - to fix any issues that you may encounter, so please report anything that bugs you.

Thank you for your feedback and general opinion regarding the new compiler release.

Regards,
Filip.