BlueJ integration

Why BlueJ?

BlueJ is a free Java development environment designed for beginners. To support the work with robots, Jabotics provides a BlueJ extension that integrates all necessary tools and commands. The installation of Jabotics and the related customization of BlueJ are being described in detail on separate pages. To get an overview of the installed extensions in BlueJ choose the command Tools → Preferences... in the project view and select the Extensions tab on the opening dialog. Once installed, the Jabotics extension provides access to general tools and file-related commands.

Tools

The menu item Tools → Robot in the project view leads to a submenu giving access to some hardware-dependent tools. Currently tools related to Lego NXT and EV3 robots are being supported like the leJOS NXT flash tool for transferring the Java firmware to the NXT robot or a patched version of the leJOS EV3 SD card creator. To make these commands available, the corresponding leJOS libraries need to be installed. More details on working with NXT and EV3 robots can be found on the corresponding pages. Support for self-assembly robots based on the Raspberry Pi is planned for the future.

File-related commands

A robot program based on the Jabotics libraries is typically represented by a single Java file that completely implements the desired functionality. All necessary commands to deal with the corresponding Java class can be accessed by a right-click on the class icon in the project view. A context menu will be opened with commands for e.g. starting the robot simulation tool or transferring the program to the robot hardware. More details can be found on the page on robot classes.