Viewing Playdate Console output on WIndows

pdconsole.zip (2.4 KB)

Hey folks. There isn't currently any supplied way to look at the console for your device, so I wrote up a quick console app in C# that shows the console (or at least just indiscriminately spew data from the serial port). You need to place this under (Playdate SDK)/bin as it uses methods from pdutil.exe to find and open the serial port. You also need to "unblock" pdutil.exe (right click on the file, Properties, hit the "Unblock" checkbox on the bottom), otherwise the console app won't be able to load the assembly. To quit, just hit escape.

On C, messages posted via playdate->system->logToConsole should show up here. Not sure what would be the logging function in Lua, but if I had to guess, maybe just print?

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This is great! We'll give this a try today. One of our devs has been coding on Windows with no console output; braver than I am! But this should be a big help! :playdate_music:

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@ali.aya This works great for us and has really helped our dev on Windows! Thanks again :smile: :pray:

Update: He just mentioned that it does crash each time he goes back to the Playdate launcher from the game, but no biggie!

This no longer works for me as of the 0.10.2 update. Crashes as soon as I open it.

The 0.10.2 SDK includes an in-development version of the Playdate Simulator, which includes a debug console that displays the output of a connected device

Yes, we noticed that. Unfortunately we have been unable to get the windows simulator working properly. We can hear the sound playing once the game loads, but the screen remains blank.

Hey Tony, My suggestion above was to use the Windows Simulator to display the debug output of a connected Playdate device. It sounds like you're having trouble running a game in the simulator itself?

Have you logged your issue in the issue tracker? It will definitely be seen there, whereas they're easy to miss in the forums. https://dev.panic.com/Playdate/Playdate/-/issues

If you can provide a test case that reproduces the issue, we can make sure your specific situation is resolved.

Aye, that's correct. Nick has already sent in a build and some information on our situation. I just wanted to make a note in here in the mean time. Thanks!

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