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Hello, Meadow F7 Feather

Meadow F7 Feather Getting Started Guide

This guide shows you how to set up your Meadow F7 Feather board from unboxing all the way to deploying your fist Meadow app from either Visual Studio 2022 or Visual Studio Code.

Step 1 - Install .NET Runtime​

Download and install the latest version of the .NET runtime.

Step 2 - Install Visual Studio​

Download and Install Visual Studio 2022 for Windows to prepare your development machine. Community edition will work fine.

Step 3 - Add Meadow Visual Studio Extension​

Open Visual Studio’s Extensions Manager and install the VS 2022 Tools for Meadow Extension.

Step 4 - Install Meadow Project Templates​

Open a console window and enter the following command to install a list of Meadow project templates:

dotnet new install WildernessLabs.Meadow.Template

When installed, you’ll see a list of templates available:

The following template packages will be installed:
   WildernessLabs.Meadow.Template

Success: WildernessLabs.Meadow.Template installed the following templates:
Template Name                  Short Name         Language        Tags
-----------------------------  -----------------  --------------  --------------
Meadow Core-Compute App        CoreComputeModule  [C#],F#,VB.NET  Meadow/Console
Meadow F7 Feather App          F7Feather          [C#],F#,VB.NET  Meadow/Console
Meadow Library                 Library            [C#],F#,VB.NET  Meadow/Library
Meadow Project Lab App         ProjectLab         [C#]            Meadow/Console
Meadow.Desktop App             Desktop            [C#]            Meadow/Console
Meadow.Linux Jetson Nano App   JetsonNano         [C#]            Meadow/Console
Meadow.Linux Raspberry Pi App  RaspberryPi        [C#]            Meadow/Console
Meadow.Linux reTerminal App    reTerminal         [C#]            Meadow/Console

Step 5 - Deploy latest version of Meadow.OS​

Use the Meadow.CLI to deploy Meadow.OS to your board to ensure it’s running with the latest version available.

Step 6 - Create your first Meadow application​

In Visual Studio, open the Create a new project window. When you search for Meadow, you will see a list of project templates, click on Meadow F7 Feather App (Wilderness Labs):

Visual Studio create a new project window showing several Meadow project temlates.

Once the new project is loaded, right-click on the toolbar area and select the Meadow Device List item.

Selecting the Meadow Device List item to show in the Visual Studio toolbar.

This is your device selector to deploy applications to Meadow devices.

Step 7 - Deploy your application​

Connect your board if disconnected, and in the Meadow devices drop down it should list its corresponding COM port. Once selected, click on the play Debug button to start transferring the application to your board.

Meadow Devices dropdown in the Visual Studio toolbar showing a selected device port.

caution

When deploying a project for the first time, the transfer will take several minutes, since it's transferring all the necessary libraries to run the application. Once the app is running for the first time, deployment will be faster as it will transfer only the files that have been changed.

Once all the files are transferred to your device, the app will start in debug mode and you should see Meadow’s onboard RGB LED lighting up in different colors.

Animation showing Meadow Feather F7 running Blinky and cycling between colors on the onboard LED.

Step 8 - Check out additional samples​

You can check more samples in our Meadow.Samples GitHub repo.

Several Meadow devices wired up to components and running various sample projects.