Open an MPLAB® Harmony v3 Example Application Project

Last modified by Microchip on 2023/11/10 11:01

This page shows you how to open one of the many demonstration application projects that are included in the MPLAB® Harmony framework.

The MPLAB® Code Configurator (MCC) is a pre-installed plug-in for the MPLAB® X IDE. This tool is used to download the specific components of the MPLAB Harmony framework required for your project. The demonstration application projects are found in these components. MCC can only be started within an existing project, so you'll need to open an existing 32-bit project or create a new MPLAB® Harmony v3 project. Once the project is opened, you can use MCC to download the Harmony components you'd like to use.

Before doing this, you'll need to do the following:

 Open an existing 32-bit Harmony project
In MPLAB® X Integrated Development Environment (IDE), select File > Open Project.

Open an existing project

If you don't have an existing 32-bit project to open, follow the instructions on the "Create a New MPLAB® Harmony v3 Project"  page.

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 Use MCC to download the Harmony demonstration applications 

Once the project is opened, start MCC by clicking on the MCC icon in the main toolbar.

MCC icon

After MCC starts, open the MCC Content Manager by clicking on the Content Manager button in the MCC Resource Management window.

MCC Content Manager

Select the demonstration application (tip: search for the word "apps") and any other components you want to download, then click the Apply button.

MCC Content Manager window

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 Download any other required Harmony components

The application example components include all the application code required for the examples, but they don't include any of the Harmony library components used by the example. For example, if you want to download a Harmony USB Device example application (i.e., usb_apps_device), you will also need to download the Harmony USB library (usb), the Chip Support Package (csp), the core module (core), and the Board Support Package (bsp). At this point you may be wondering, "How do I know which modules are needed to run a given example application?". 

There are two ways to find this out:

Open an example project then start MCC. MCC will use the project manifest file to ensure the required library components are in your local repository. If it can't find a component (or a specific component version), it will let you know which ones you'll need to download.

MCC content manager warning

Read the project manifest file yourself: package.yml. You'll find this file in the top-level folder in all example application components.

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 Open the example application project

Example application projects come with most libraries. These can be found in each library's apps folder. Browse to the firmware folder to find all evaluation boards that support the application. Select your evaluation board and click Open Project.

Example projects folder

After successful loading, MCC opens the Project Graph, Resource Management, and Configuration Options windows.

MCC window descriptions

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