Arduino IDE features which I think should be present

[Vindhyachal.takniki]

I am a Arduino User. I had experience in working with many other IDE's like Keil, CCS, IAR.
There are few changes I like to suggest:

1. GUI interface for Optimization Flag: Add a small GUI interface in preference section for optimization flag settings.

2. Option to add multiple .c & .h in workspace tree. Files added should appear on project workspace tree on left side. Write know you can also add multiple files but there is no proper project workspace tree like section.

3. Display ZI, RW, RO & Code data separately. This could be good if there.

4. When right click on any variable/function, it should have option to take you to its definition.

5. Make a copy of all internal library used and move them in project workspace, & then build the code from these files which are in project workspace. Like IAR has option to "ignore standard include directories"
Most of people will say no it, but below I write some of arguments in its favour:
a) All the required .c/.h are in your current project space, which gives a better view what files are included are what are not
b) Sometimes you want to tweak a 3rd party library for some code related issues, at that times this option is good as it wont reflect in any other code. All library changes are in this project workspace only.
c) At any time you can check what inside any function in library to see what going on. If this is not the case, u have to go in default location and check which is not in workspace.


First 4 options, I think any IDE should have.
I dont know why arduino as IDE dont have those?

[karkoon]

Good points. Although I think these options are missing for a good reason. The current version of Arduino IDE is targeted for people who are not power users. It is to welcome them and make them feel writing arduino code is as simple as a simple text editor program. So I believe what arduino ide currently have is very welcoming for the first time programmers.

Not to discount your good suggestions.

I feel there can be a Arduino+ for the power users which can have all the things which you just mentioned and more. In fact that can be just a configuration option.

[emoji846]


Typed with thumbs.

[newbrain]

The Arduino editor barely warrants to be called an IDE...I really would not use it if not for the simplest stuff.

As karkoon says, it's maybe good for beginners, lacking any sophisticated functionality that may be confusing.

On Windows, Visual Studio (Community) plus Visual Micro are a good free (as in beer) alternative: it joins the power of VS with Arduino ease of programming.

Visual Micro can also be added on top of Atmel Studio, with some caveats.

A further possibility, leaner and simpler might be this one.
I've not tried it (I'm not into Arduino), but I use VS Code (free, as in freedom) extensively, and I like it more and more.

[rstofer]

There is an Arduino plug-in for the Eclipse IDE.  I haven't tried it...

[frozenfrogz]

Check out plattformIO for a more professional approach on Arduino
It should give you the features you are missing.

Have not really switched myself (yet), but it looks quite promising.

[newbrain]

Check out plattformIO for a more professional approach on Arduino
It should give you the features you are missing.

Have not really switched myself (yet), but it looks quite promising.

Looks interesting, thanks for the pointer.
Unfortunately, the free plan does not include the debugger, and I'm not so fond of subscription based SW.
It does not matter much for Arduino, though: debugging is not supported in any case.

For my purposes, I might try it and see if gets along nicely with the VS Code native debugging extension.

[frozenfrogz]

Unfortunately, the free plan does not include the debugger, and I'm not so fond of subscription based SW.

The freemium models and subscription plans seem to be all the rage these days. I also do not like subscription based stuff but oh well... I am not going to complain about free of charge services either

The Arduino plugin (Sloeber) for Eclipse as mentioned earlier can be found here: http://eclipse.baeyens.it/
(Did not try it)

[rstofer]

On Windows, Visual Studio (Community) plus Visual Micro are a good free (as in beer) alternative: it joins the power of VS with Arduino ease of programming.

Visual Micro can also be added on top of Atmel Studio, with some caveats.

This is really the way to go.  A very professional IDE with a plug-in to program the Arduino.

Some years back, I used a Teensy++ 2.0 board to add buttons, knobs and dials to Microsoft Flight Simulator via USB HID.   I did the entire project on Visual Studio and it was quite convenient to have both the AVR code and the PC code sitting right next to each other in the source tree.

I could as well use Eclipse for the project but it seemed wise to use Visual Studio with the Microsoft libraries.