Serial monitor window suggestions

I like very much that the serial monitor is in a separate window in 0017.

Here are a few suggestions for the MacOS version:

  1. window resizing not obvious
    The baud rate selector popup in the lower right corner obscures the window resizing indicator (the diagonal lines in a triangle). Or maybe it is not there at all? In either case, the fact that the window can be resized is not so obvious.

  2. remember window attributes
    It would be nice if the IDE remembered the size and position of the serial monitor window across invocations, like it does for the sketch window.

  3. stop serial monitor
    I see no way to pause, freeze, or otherwise stop the scrolling of the output in the serial monitor window. This is useful when debugging and you want to examine the results displayed in the window, of course.

You can close the window, or re-upload the sketch, but when a new serial monitor window opens, you have lost the output of the prior one and, thus, the data you are trying to examine.

You can disconnect the USB connection, which halts the output and leaves the window open, but this is crude. At a minimum, it generates an error message on screen, but it can also brutally crash the Mac.

According to the docs for the IDE, clicking the STOP button in the sketch window should stop the serial monitor, but it does not for me.

It would be nice to have a PAUSE/CONTINUE function for the serial window.

Thanks.

.andy

These all sound like reasonable requests. Can you post them to the issues list on the Arduino project on Google Code, so they don't get lost? Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.

Sure. Each one as a separate item, or lumped together?

Separate is better.

I added new items 95-98. You can delete #90, which had them all together. I see no way to delete a request once it has been added. (?)

Hi,
I hope to be lucky enough.
I am living in the debug step, so the Serial Monitor window is my only window for now(!) :slight_smile:
I am using XP SP3 (spanish).
It would be interesting to do some more "things"there.
I can stop the scrolling left-clicking and move up and down to "see" my data, but the data stream continues at the end and never ends.
So the suggestions:
Maybe right click menu to:

  • stop the data stream (left click to stop scrolling is fine)
  • resume the data stream (so you receive the data WHEN you want)
  • copy (you select the data and COPY to another file maybe, to think...)
  • clear the selected lines (or all?)
    So we do not must close serial monitor to restart a new empty window AND restart the program FROM the start, an undesired side effect sometimes.
    Thank you very much :wink:
    Hector

I have started to play with the Arduino IDE source code and done some modifications to the SerialMonitor window:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1250431477

I can test out and post some of the modifications suggested. Is this interesting for the core team or should we rather post suggestions to the issues list ?

I have noted that some of the modifications suggested is not in the SerialMonitor window code but rather in the Editor code that controls the SerialMonitor.

I have a new experimental SerialMonitor for Arduino 0017 at http://github.com/mlu/arduino-stm32/.
Then click down to arduino-stm32 / app / src / processing / app / SerialMonitor.java

It has logFile, Pause/Resume and Clear . Also the window is not cleared when reopenened.

How would I try this, if I'm not familiar with the IDE software itself, but a user of it?

Well,

The simple answer is to replace the file SerialMonitor.java found
in "app/src/processing/app" and then rebuild the Arduino application.

So you need the source distribution and some build tools. I have done this under Linux and it is really easy there (but I do have full blown development system and a few years practice).

More instructions can be found at :
http://code.google.com/p/arduino/wiki/BuildingArduino

Yes it is a bit complicated if you are not used to this, but after the first setup and rebuild any more changes is build with a simple ./make.sh command. One line to rebuild and the one line to start arduino.

I have a Mac, so I'll give it a try. I'd very much like to test the features you've implemented.

Thanks.

Or...

If anyone out there is a Mac developer and would like to make a new Arduino 0017 app with this module replaced, I (and I'm sure others) would be happy to test it!

Thanks.

I got hit with the problem reported as Issue #119 (IDE not sending certain characters):

http://code.google.com/p/arduino/issues/detail?id=119

I suggest that not just '\n' and '\r', but ALL characters be sent in raw mode and that the "SEND" button be removed along with the one line input text display.