Anyone launched two copies of IDE on Mac?

I would like to run my M7 and H7 simultaneously, presumably from completely independent instances of the IDE, but if I try to run a second copy, it just refocuses on the first running copy. I’ve never had this problem before. Usually it’s pretty easy to run an application multiple times, or run completely separate copies of an application simultaneously.

I realize this is a bit eccentric, but if anyone has any thoughts, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

You can only have one copy of the IDE. This is on purpose. We have a module called QtSingleApplication running that when you start a second IDE it finds the previous running one, passes it’s command lines arguments to the first one, and then shutsdown.

This is how drag and drop works among other things. It’s not possible to make each application window integrated with your shell (windows explorer, finder on mac, ect) without only having one application. Arduino gets away with this but at the expense of their application having no integration with the operating system shell other than being rendered on screen.

Also, it would be impossible to store settings for two apps.

If you want two frame buffers please use the Tools->Open Terminal feature. You can print the frame buffer of a camera by doing print(img.compressed_for_ide(), end=“”). You can use this feature to send scripts to both cameras too.

Thanks. I’ll look into those features.

So, this is all experimental for me. I only just started working with two OpenMVs at the same time this week. The intent is to create a hybrid two-cam system, perhaps connected through SPI for central coordination, in which the cams would do slightly different things. For example, one might object-track with a wide focal length lens and the other refine the object tracking to greater precision (but less FOV). Both cameras would be on the same pan-tilt mechanism with one as the primary servo driver and the other sending secondary tracking instructions through SPI. Or alternatively, one cam might be used for tracking while the other is used for image analysis, say using a global shutter module for high speed analysis.

There are lots of directions to take this project in, but I would really like to get both OpenMV systems into the desktop development environment at the same time, obviously on two separate USB connections to the computer. I tried the “Open Terminal” command was able to open a second window with an interactive terminal to the other serial port, but I couldn’t get two code-editors and I couldn’t get two connect-disconnect buttons or run-stop buttons. How do I connect two both boards at the same time?

I think you indicated above that I should be able to get images from both cameras by calling print(img.compressed_for_ide(), end=“”) from the code on the board itself, but without IDE integration, wouldn’t that code have to be put into a main.py and run as the board powers up? I haven’t tried that yet, but even if that did work, it would leave me almost incapable of interacting with the board for development and debugging purposes. I would still only have IDE access to one of the two boards, even if the proposed method might get me frame grabs from both cameras.

I hope my description is clear. I fear it may not be. Do you have any thoughts on this? As I admitted above, I realize I’m pushing the boundaries of the project here, but if there is a way to get this working, that would be really great.

Thanks.