Making a.bin file
Making a.bin file
When you make sure your program works just like you want it to, it’s time to make it part of the Ringo OS.
By doing this method, you’re basically putting it on the main menu screen so you can use it whenever you want to!
Though it won’t load as fast as the other regular apps, it works more like the games you have on your menu. The games first load for about 10-20 seconds and then are loaded to your phone. When you want to return, just press the
‘Home’ button and select ‘Home’ icon to go straight back to the lockscreen.
‘Home’ button and select ‘Home’ icon to go straight back to the lockscreen.
Pressing the ‘Export to .bin’ button will open a new window so you can choose the exact location you want to export the .bin.
The whole process takes about 30 seconds.
Now we need to transfer it to Ringo.
For this step, you’re going to use the SD card, which is located at the bottom of the brain board.
Push it in and a spring mechanism will pop it out.
Now take a little USB-like device that you’ve received in your Ringo box – it’s SD to USB adapter and it allows you to work with your SD card even if you don’t have that exact port on your computer.
When you plug it in there should be some default folders on your SD card.
Create a new folder and name it however you want (in this example it’s named ‘NewApp’). Now copy the .bin file inside.
You can see that in another game folder there is also a .bmp file named ‘icon’. It is, as you might guess, an icon that will be shown on the Ringo main menu.
NOTE: Make sure to name the .bin file the same as the folder.Ex. If the folder is named ‘NewApp’, the game file should be named ‘NewApp.bin’.
If you wish to create your own app icon, make sure it’s a 24×26 dimension and a 24-bit Bitmap (.bmp).
Name it 'icon' and put it in the same folder.
If you don’t do that, the app will still be visible in the main menu but will contain no icon.
Now that you know how to upload your apps and games to the phone, you can try out drawing and importing some sprites to your Ringo.
Once you master CircuitBlocks and are ready for something more, try using PlatformIO or Arduino IDE to upload some code to your Ringo. Here are the tutorials on that:
Already have some experience with coding?
If you already have some skill with C/C++ programming and are up for a bigger challenge, you can try your hand at customizing Ringo's firmware. Find a guide on how to do that below:
If you want to put the stock firmware back onto your device, you can click the Restore firmware button in the top right corner on CircuitBlocks.