Crank Software's Storyboard Suite provides support of TI's BeagleBoard on multiple platforms.

Getting Started with Storyboard on the Beagleboard

Storyboard Designer

The first thing you need to do to get started with Crank Software's Storyboard is to download the free evaluation version from our website. The Storyboard Designer can be hosted on either Windows or Linux.

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Supported Platforms

Linux

• Frame Buffer (fbdev)
• DirectFB
• OpenVG

WinCE

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Linux and Storyboard on the Beagleboard

Beagleboard

You will next need to have your Beagleboard running Linux. For instructions on how to setup your board please follow this link.

BeagleBoardBeginners

Storyboard Engine

Note: If using directfb, it is not installed by default. To install directfb on the Beagleboard use the following command ...

opkg install directfb

First we need to slay X on the Beagleboard. Use the following command to slay the windowing system ...

pkill gpe-dm

Now we must put the plugins and engine onto the target. The files can be copied to the target or remotely mounted. Create a directory on the target for the Engine such as "Storyboard". In a final setup you would only put the plugins your application requires but for this example we will put all plugins on the target. Create 2 new directories and copy the following files from host to target:

[install root]/Storyboard Engine/linux_armle-armle-fbdev-obj/plugins/* -> [target]/Storyboard/plugins
[install root]/Storyboard Engine/linux_armle-armle-fbdev-obj/bin/sbengine -> [target]/Storyboard/bin
[install root]/Storyboard Engine/linux_armle-armle-fbdev-obj/lib/* -> [target]/Storyboard/lib

Now we need an application to run. Samples are shipped in the "[install root]/Samples" directory. Copy one of these to the target system, copy all files in the selected sample as the samples contain all of the images, fonts, scripts and deployment files required. For example copy "button-example" to the target system's "/tmp" directory.

Storyboard loads plugins for added functionality. It loads these based on the environment variable "GRE_PLUGINS". This can be set to a list of plugins or to a directory. For our case lets set it to the plugin directory:

export GRE_PLUGINS=[target]/Storyboard/plugins
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:[target]/Storyboard/lib

Storyboard for Linux uses Freetype for font loading and rendering so make sure that libfreetype.so is on the target.

Now you can run your application.

[target]/bin/sbengine /tmp/button-example/button-example.gapp

Note: If your application uses the Storyboard IO API then make sure that you have configured the Linux kernel for mqueue.

Note: If using fbdev or OpenVG use the following command to enable mouse input ...

[target]/bin/sbengine -oscreen_mgr,swcursor=1 -odev-input,mouse=/dev/input/event2 /tmp/button-example/button-example.gapp

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WinCE and Storyboard on the Beagleboard

Beagleboard

You will next need to have your Beagleboard running WinCE. MPC Data offers evaluation binaries of their WinCE BSP.

Evaluation WinCE BSP

Download the binaries from here.

The PDF "MPC Data Limited Windows CE 6.0 BSP for BeagleBoard Quick Start Guide" is a useful quick-start guide to setting up hardware and formatting your SD card.

To boot from an SD card:

1. Using the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" format an SD Memory Card.
2. Copy the file MLO to the SD Memory Card (Note: The file MLO must be the first file copied to a freshly formatted SD Memory Card)
3. Copy the files ebootsd.nb0 and nk.bin to the SD Memory Card.
4. Reboot the beagle board (may need to hold done 'User' button while rebooting)

This image supports both the USB host and the OTG port. This allows a hub to be plugged in to the host, while using the OTG port to connect to a laptop/desktop allowing you to use the Windows Mobile Device Center.

The image also provides ceshell support, so you can use a command (cmd.exe) window.

Storyboard Engine

When you installed Storyboard all of the supported target configurations were installed to "[install root]/Storyboard Engine". Each directory there contains the plugins and binaries required to run Storyboard on an embedded target. For this example we will assume a Windows CE system based on Windows CE 5.2 or better.

Note: Windows CE 6.0 (and to a lesser degree 5) is very customizable. Your target Windows CE image needs to have Alphablending enabled in libGWES.dll in order to be compatible with Storyboard 1.1. To receive verbose output using the -v option, you must ensure a console is build into your target Windows CE image.

First we must put the plugins and engine onto the target. The files can be copied to the target or remotely mounted. Create a directory on the target for the Engine such as "Storyboard". In a final setup you would only put the plugins your application requires but for this example we will put all plugins on the target. Create 2 new directories and copy the following files from host to target:

[install root]/Storyboard Engine/wince-armle-win32-obj/plugins/* -> [target]/Storyboard/plugins
[install root]/Storyboard Engine/wince-armle-win32-obj/bin/sbengine -> [target]/Storyboard/bin

Now we need an application to run. Samples are shipped in the "[install root]/Samples" directory. Copy one of these to the target system, copy all files in the selected sample as the samples contain all of the images, fonts, scripts and deployment files required. For example copy "button-example" to the target system's "/tmp" directory.

Storyboard loads plugins for added functionality. Because Windows CE does not support environment variables, the plugin must be specified as a command line option:

-omodel_mgr,plugin_path="[target]/Storyboard/plugins"

Should you not specify the plugin directory via the command line, the Storyboard engine will load plugins form the directory where the executed gapp file resides.

Now you can run your application.

[target]/bin/sbengine -omodel_mgr,plugin_path="[target]/Storyboard/plugins" /tmp/button-example/button-example.gapp

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To get support or to discuss features and requirements check out the Crank Software forums.