Use LVGL in an STM32 HAL Project¶

Create the STM32 HAL Project¶

If you have an STM32 board with a display mounted to it, it's best to initialize your project with STM32CubeIDE or STM32CubeMX by finding your board in the board selector. Sometimes 3rd party boards have a sample STM32Cube project. The common component of these projects is the .ioc file. It describes all the peripheral configurations and pin mappings. A board with a display is much easier to get started with if the LCD is already configured in the .ioc file. If the board LCD is controlled by the LTDC (LCD-TFT Display Controller) peripheral, you can use the LVGL LTDC driver.

Add LVGL to your Project¶

git clone or copy LVGL into your project directory.
In the STM32CubeIDE Project Explorer pane: right click on the LVGL folder and select Add/remove include path…. If this doesn't appear or doesn't work, you can review your project include paths under the Project -> Properties menu, and then navigating to C/C++ Build -> Settings -> Include paths, and ensuring that the LVGL directory is listed.

Now that the source files are included in your project, follow the instructions to add LVGL to your project and to create the lv_conf.h file and initialize the display. Before manually initializing your display though, check to see if your project uses the LTDC (LCD-TFT Display Controller) peripheral. If it does, you can simply use LVGL's LTDC driver.

Using LVGL with STM32 HAL¶

After reviewing Adding LVGL to your project, you will appreciate the specifics of using LVGL with an STM32 HAL project covered here.

tick¶

You will want to set the tick callback to HAL_GetTick.

lv_tick_set_cb(HAL_GetTick);

In your timer handler loop, you should delay with HAL_Delay. A good value to delay for is 2 ms. Because of the way HAL_Delay works, a delay of 1 actually only delays for between 0 and 1 ms.

/* Infinite loop */
/* USER CODE BEGIN WHILE */
while (1)
{
    /* USER CODE END WHILE */

    /* USER CODE BEGIN 3 */

    lv_timer_handler();

    HAL_Delay(2);
}
/* USER CODE END 3 */

Display Driver¶

Before manually initializing your display, check to see if your project uses the LTDC (LCD-TFT Display Controller) peripheral. If it does, you can simply use LVGL's LTDC driver.

If your display is one that LVGL has a driver for, you should use it so that you have less driver logic to implement in your project.

See this guide for creating an SPI display driver.

RTOS¶

If you enable FreeRTOS or CMSIS RTOS in your STM32 HAL project, you can enable LVGL's support for the corresponding RTOS and LVGL will use the thread creation and synchronization primitives of the respective RTOS when rendering, depending on the renderers enabled.

Set LV_USE_OS to LV_OS_FREERTOS or LV_OS_CMSIS_RTOS2.