NEW JERSEY'S FIRST HACKERSPACE - 100 Jersey Ave, New Brunswick, NJ
Sometimes it would be handy to create a control panel in software, that runs on a Windows PC. The main advantage is being able to control an embedded microcontroller, using commands from a PC that could be a distance away. The embedded microcontroller can still run autonomously, but in the case that new operations need to be commanded, a Windows PC runing a graphical user interface (GUI) can re-direct the local operation of the microcontroller. Having a program running on a PC also allows for a wide variety of data storage options.
The other way to do Graphical User Interface is through a Web Page. The Ethernet Shield and Web Server code on Arduino can be used to create this service. The web user accesses various parameters over hyperlinks to live data on the Arduino Web Server. An example will be presented.
A native graphical user interface program on the Apple Laptop or Desktop is beyond the scope of discussion for this class, but would make an interesting class in the future. Some programming environments on the Apple also are supported on MS Windows as well, like Swift and Netbeans Java. General Programming environments on the Mac include:
Apple XCode IDE.