AGENTS.md gains the rules the day's debugging produced: never put the
config in the install dir (the build script wipes it, silently costing
all local-only fields), never branch app_dir() on sys.frozen (two
diverging configs), the consequences that come with a frameless window,
and why the resize grip must be placed rather than packed. Also records
that Claude's Bash and PowerShell tools can see different files under
AppData, which made "the notes are in the file" and "the app shows no
notes" both true at once -- with the diagnostic-module approach that
finally settled it.
README: config now lives in %APPDATA%\VersaPadViewer, plus the frameless
window and notes in the feature list.
Three related fixes after the notes feature landed:
Config location: build_and_deploy.ps1 wipes its target directory before
every deploy, and app_dir() had just been pointed at that same directory
-- so every rebuild silently deleted the user's config and the app
rebuilt it empty from the board, losing all notes. Config now lives in
%APPDATA%\VersaPadViewer (roaming), separate from the install dir, and
the build script additionally rescues any versapad_config*.json it finds
in the target so legacy installs survive an upgrade.
Window chrome: hide the title bar (plain Tk overrideredirect, no ctypes
window manipulation) and move the mode checkboxes up next to the title,
which reclaims two full rows of header height that the taller note cards
had eaten. Removing the title bar also removes the resize borders, so
add a grip -- anchored with place() to the window corner rather than
packed after the content, which would push it out of view exactly when
the window is too small and the grip is needed. Default geometry grown
to fit the taller cards, and empty encoder note lines are no longer
rendered at all.
Note truncation: the note area was a fixed 34px and cut longer notes
mid-word; it now takes the remaining card height.
Lets you record what a binding actually does (e.g. "Save in Fusion
360") alongside the auto-generated label ("Strg+S"). Notes live in a
new "note" field on every action dict, purely local like profile
names -- the firmware struct has no room for strings, and
pack_config/unpack_config already only touch type/data so the extra
key round-trips harmlessly.
Two things had to be handled carefully: changing a button's key/type
must not wipe its note (all set_button_*/set_encoder_* setters and the
edit dialog now carry the previous note forward), and re-reading from
the board must not erase notes either, since the firmware doesn't know
about them -- versapad_combined.merge_notes() restores them onto the
freshly-fetched state by button/encoder index.
Editable via the Programmiermodus dialog (new text field), visible on
both the desktop card (grown from 84 to 114px to fit it) and the
browser view. MCP server gets set_button_note()/set_encoder_note() so
notes can be set programmatically too.
Cherry-picked commits from Julian Appel's dev/jappel branch changed the
default deploy target to $projectDir\dist\VersaPadViewer. Revert just
that to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VersaPadViewer, which is where the actually
installed/running instance on this machine lives -- switching would
orphan the existing install and any shortcuts pointing at it. Document
the cherry-pick provenance and what was deliberately left out
(.mcp.json's hardcoded path, the docs/ tree) in AGENTS.md.
pip install of pyinstaller/pystray/pillow was a separate manual step the
README only mentioned in prose, so the script silently died on missing
packages -- especially bad on Explorer double-click, where the window
closes before any error is visible. Consolidate all dependencies into
requirements.txt (also used by README's plain "pip install -r" flow), have
the script install it itself, wrap the whole build in try/catch with
exit-code checks after every native call, and pause on both success and
failure unless -NoPause is passed.
Also move the build output from %LOCALAPPDATA% into dist/ next to the
script, so it's easy to find and matches the already-gitignored dist/ entry.
(cherry picked from commit 13c3745479)
Double-click-to-rename already existed but silently no-op'd unless
Programmiermodus was on, and even there it only updated the in-memory
self.combined without saving -- the name was lost unless some later button
edit happened to trigger an autosave. Since profile_names lives purely in
the combined JSON and never touches the board, there's no reason to gate it
behind the heavier editing mode: it now works from any mode, loading/saving
the combined file directly (auto-creating it if needed) when not already in
an active Programmiermodus session, and always persists immediately.
(cherry picked from commit 82c3fd0056)
versapad_combined.DEFAULT_PATH was hardcoded to this one machine's OneDrive
desktop, which made the tool unusable anywhere else. versapad_data.app_dir()
now resolves to the running .exe's own folder when frozen, or the project
directory when run from source, and DEFAULT_PATH hangs off that instead.
load_or_fetch() previously raised when both the file was missing and the
board unreachable, blocking a fresh install with no config and no board
attached. It now falls back to an empty default_combined() in that case, so
the tool is immediately usable either way. desktop_viewer's
_current_profile_view() picks up the same fallback instead of re-implementing
a narrower version of it.
Also drop the hardcoded PROFILE_NAMES dict, which had drifted out of sync
with the profile_names already stored in the combined JSON -- renaming a
profile in Programmiermodus never showed up in the read-only/browser views.
server.py and desktop_viewer.py now read names from the same JSON everywhere.
versapad_data.CONFIG_PATHS (read-only interop with the official C# VersaGUI's
JSON export) is intentionally left on the OneDrive desktop -- nothing in
this codebase writes there, it's not part of this tool's own config.
(cherry picked from commit 5d14bdd826)
get_board_status()/load_from_board()/write_to_board() kept the serial
link open indefinitely after use (VersaPadLink._ensure_open() never
closes on its own). Any session that called one of these left the COM
port locked for VersaGUI/desktop_viewer/server.py's board fallback
until the MCP server process was killed. Close the link in a finally
block after each call instead.
server.py and desktop_viewer.py read-only mode required the desktop
config JSONs to exist and crashed/showed "Config-Datei fehlt" if one
was deleted, even though the board already holds the config durably
in NVM. Add versapad_combined.fetch_from_board()/load_or_fetch(): a
missing combined JSON is now transparently rebuilt from the board via
serial and cached back to disk, falling back to the legacy per-profile
JSONs (or a clear error) only when the board is unreachable.
_on_toggle_editing() seeded self.combined from default_combined() on first
activation, which reads the stale per-profile JSONs for all 3 profiles
instead of the current versapad_config_all.json. Writing to board while
only editing one profile silently reverted the other two. Now prefers
loading the current combined file, falling back to defaults only if it
doesn't exist.
Also documents the READ_STATUS polling change and the jappel PR workflow
constraint in AGENTS.md.
Live-Sync polls read_active_profile() every 1.5s, but it was requesting
a full 740-byte config dump (~124 chunk packets) just to read one
byte out of it. The firmware handles CONFIG_READ synchronously and
blocking, which delayed its LED animation update enough to make
Pulse/Blink visibly stutter on every poll cycle -- see
VersaMCU's doc/07_serial_protocol.md ("READ_STATUS vs. CONFIG_READ
fuer Polling") for the root-cause writeup on the firmware side.
read_active_profile() now sends VersaMCU's new CMD_READ_STATUS (0x06)
and reads back a single EVT_STATUS (0x86) packet instead of driving
the chunked dump protocol. Requires the corresponding firmware update
(VersaMCU commit "Add lightweight READ_STATUS command..."); older
firmware without it just times out gracefully (last_error stays
"timeout", no crash).
desktop_viewer.py's SERIAL_POLL_S/SERIAL_IDLE_S already sit back at
their original 1.5s/3.0s (temporarily raised to 8s as a stopgap before
the firmware fix landed) since the expensive dump is gone now.
Verified end-to-end against a freshly flashed board: correct profile
returned, no more visible LED stutter with Live-Sync on.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
AGENTS.md now follows the mandated section structure (Project Goal,
Aktuell unterstützte Architektur, Kritische Domänenregeln,
Existing-Codebase-Regel, Implementierungsdisziplin, Naming, Deferred
Work, Dokumentation und Verifikation) instead of an organically grown
set of headings. Folds in all prior technical notes (protocol
validation, network-drive build/runtime gotchas, threading rules)
under the appropriate section, and fixes a stale "no tray icon yet"
line that no longer matched the code. README gets an explicit honest
status paragraph (what's tested, what's not: no automated tests, no
prebuilt exe download, hardcoded paths).
No docs/ tree: project has no database or persistent multi-user
service, so the full doc structure isn't warranted per the standard.
AGENTS.md is agent-facing session notes, not a proper intro for
someone landing on the repo cold. README covers: what this is,
requirements, how to run from source or build the .exe (and why no
prebuilt .exe is committed -- network-drive build/runtime gotchas),
file overview, MCP server usage, known limitations.
Ursache: Programmiermodus arbeitet auf der kombinierten Datei
(versapad_config_all.json), der Nur-Lese-Modus las aber immer nur die
alten Einzel-JSONs (versapad_config{1,2,3}.json) -- zwei komplett
getrennte Datenquellen. Jetzt: jede Aenderung im Programmiermodus wird
sofort in die kombinierte Datei geschrieben, und der Nur-Lese-Modus
bevorzugt diese Datei, wenn sie existiert.
Info dialog no longer assumes Claude Code's own CLI setup command --
other users may register the MCP server with a different assistant.
Live-Sync status just says "verbunden" instead of repeating the
profile name (already visible via the active tab).
Minimizing or closing hides the window instead of leaving a taskbar
entry; only "Beenden" in the tray right-click menu really exits. Tray
callbacks route through a queue instead of touching Tk directly from
pystray's thread (same pattern as the earlier serial-thread fix).
Also fixes the build script: PyInstaller failed on the network share
while copying Tcl/Tk tzdata (path-length issue), so building now
happens in a local temp copy instead of directly on Z:.
Adds an info button that explains the MCP server's available tools.
Avoids the cmd.exe flash from double-clicking run_desktop.bat and
gives a proper double-click .exe like VersaGUI.exe. Must be deployed
locally (%LOCALAPPDATA%) -- Windows silently refuses to load the
_internal DLLs when the .exe sits on the Z: network share, no error
shown. build_and_deploy.ps1 handles build + local copy in one step.
