SimpleCom

Console app for serial connection.

How to use

1. Conenct serial adaptor to your PC
2. Start SimpleCom.exe
3. Setup serial console
   • If you start SimpleCom without any command line options, use dialog to configure
     • > SimpleCom.exe
   • You can configure serial port with command line, then dialog would not be shown
     • > SimpleCom.exe <options> COM[N]
     • COM[N] is mandatory to specify serial port
4. Operate target device via the console
5. Press F1 to leave its serial session and to finish SimpleCom
   • Press CTRL+C in batch mode

Important

You have to use batch mode (--batch) if you want to redirect something into SimpleCom. Batch mode would not terminate automatically when stdin reaches EOF. So you have to type CTRL+C if you want terminate SimpleCom.

Command line options

Option	Default	Description
--show-dialog	false	Show setup dialog even if command line arguments are passed.
--wait-serial-device [seconds]	0 (disable)	Wait specified seconds for serial devices are available.
--utf8	false	Use UTF-8 code page on SimpleCom console.
--tty-resizer	false	Use TTY resizer. See README.md in TTY resizer.
--baud-rate [num]	115200	Baud rate
--byte-size [num]	8	Byte size
--parity [val]	none	Set one of following values as a parity: none odd even mark space
--stop-bits [val]	1	Set one of following values as a stop bits: 1 1.5 2
--flow-control [val]	none	Set one of following values as a flow control: none hardware software
--auto-reconnect	false	Reconnect to peripheral automatically when serial session is disconnected.
--auto-reconnect-pause [num]	3	Pause time in seconds before reconnecting to peripheral.
--auto-reconnect-timeout [num]	120	Reconnect timeout
--log-file [logfile]	<none>	Log serial communication to file
--stdin-logging	false	Enable stdin logging ⚠️Possible to be logged each chars duplicately due to echo back from the console when this option is set, and also secrets (e.g. passphrase) typed into the console will be logged even if it is not shown on the console.
--batch	false	Perform in batch mode ⚠️You have to set serial port in command line arguments, and you cannot set with --show-dialog, --tty-resizer, --auto-reconnect, --log-file.
--disable-efficiency-mode	false	Disable Efficiency Mode. Specify this option if you have performance issue in SimpleCom. This option cannot be set on setup dialog.
--help	-	Show help message

How to build

Use SimpleCom.sln on your Visual Studio.
I confirmed x64 build on VS 2019.

Distribution package

You can get distribution package when you do release build.

• dist: ZIP archive
• Installer: MSI installer

MSI installer installes SimpleCom.exe and README.md (and also custom action assembly). It will deploy JSON fragment for SimpleCom into %ProgramData% or %LocalAppData% (it depends on install user choice). So the use can use SimpleCom without any configuration (as following) on Windows Terminal.

How to use on Windows Terminal

You can use fragments.json to add SimpleCom to your Windows Terminal.
For example, run following commands to add SimpleCom for all users.

PS > mkdir "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Terminal\Fragments\SimpleCom"
PS > cp C:\Path\To\fragment.json "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Terminal\Fragments\SimpleCom"

Please see Applications installed from the web in Microsoft Docs.

Notes

• SimpleCom sends / receives VT100 escape sequences. So the serial device to connect via SimpleCom needs to support VT100 or compatible shell.
• F1 key is hooked by SimpleCom (in interactive mode (default)), so escape sequence of F1 (ESC O P) would not be propagated.
  • In batch mode, F1 would propergate to peripheral.
• SimpleCom supports ANSI chars only, so it would not work if multibyte chars (e.g. CJK chars) are given.
• Run resize provided by xterm if you want to align VT size of Linux box with your console window.

License

GNU General Public License v2.0