RAGen vs. Wizard

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dtzreef
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 8:58 pm

RAGen vs. Wizard

Post by dtzreef »

Whats the difference? Is one prefered over the other? It seema as though they pretty much do the same thing. Please excuse my ignorance if this has already been addressed. I love this controller. I just want to make sure I am doing things the correct way. Hopefully, answers to these stupid questions will help others like me just starting out.
binder
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Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:20 pm
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Re: RAGen vs. Wizard

Post by binder »

That's actually a great question and has not been fully addressed in one location.

RAGen was initially created by me as a means to program the controller since the libraries were becoming complex and large. This app was created as a Windows based app. It worked great for creating the Sketches (INO / PDE) files to be loaded onto the controller. It is actually deprecated (not used or recommended) now. It will not work with the new libraries (v1.0 or later). It is only to be used for people who have some of the earlier versions of the libraries and who are already using it. All the functionality and more is inside the Wizard.

Reef Angel Wizard was created by Roberto and incorporated into Arduino for simplicity. It does everything that RAGen does and more. It was created to account for the cross-platform issue. It is Javascript based and can run on any platform that handles Javascript. It's also integrated into Arduino to make things simple. It gets updated easier than RAGen. It's also the preferred way and can handle all the newer versions of the libraries.

The only thing that the Wizard cannot do that RAGen could do is create your custom menus. Because of this limitation, I created a java based custom menu generator (http://forum.reefangel.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1773) that makes up for the difference and can run on all platforms that support Java.

I could go into more details of the history of RAGen and why it was created along with the limitations and how the Wizard came into play, but I'll spare you the gory details (for now) and leave you with the simple answer.

Bottom line: RAGen is not recommended to be used anymore. Wizard is the preferred way to create your sketches and is recommended to be used.
dtzreef
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 8:58 pm

Re: RAGen vs. Wizard

Post by dtzreef »

Thank you so much for that explanation. It really cleared up a lot of my confusion(which is not easy to do). I hope it helped others as well.
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