CTRL-n New could do a bit more

99% of the time when I start a new sketch I press CTRL-n and an new empty windows open

Then I write something I "always" start with

void setup() 
{ 
  Serial.begin(115200); 
  Serial.println(Start...); 
} 

void loop() 
{ 
  Serial.println(); 
}

It would be great if the IDE fills the new window with such content to speed up starting a new sketch.
Preferably this text is read from a file called CTRLN.pde or new.pde or so. This way the user can patch the default content easily.


This morning I started some fiddling with AutoHotKey.exe to get something similar done, it has a lot of possibilities - see AHK-code below -

Works quite well on windows, but it won't on linux or Mac-OS :frowning: - That's why I propose/prefer a build in solution.

AutoHotKey script for WINDOWS-a key combination to generate a minimum sketch

#a::
Send void setup() {Enter} {{} {Enter} Serial.begin(115200); {Enter}  Serial.println("Start..."); {Enter}  {}} {Enter} {Enter} 
Send void loop() {Enter} {{} {Enter} Serial.println(); {}} {Enter} {Enter} {Control Down} t {Control Up}
return

There is a basic start-up sketch in the file/examples/Basics/BareMinimum that you can edit to include the serial commands you want to default with. Then when you wish to start a new sketch, you can just open that file and then do a save as with the new name of your sketch and off you go. So not a single hot key, but it will save you keystrokes on starting a new sketch.

Lefty

Thanks lefty!

Never looked there to see if there was something useful :blush: :blush: :blush:

It is easy to add some nice stripped sketches there as starter ...

Learned something today :wink:

It would still be a nice improvement if New/ctrl-N was just a shortcut to open that file, rather than the rather useless empty document, imo.

There is, actually, a way to do what you're suggesting. I forget if it was an ide mod or what but "template" was part of what it was called. sorry to be vague but have a good hard google around and maybe you'll find it.

If you create a sketch (or move BareMinimum) to the /examples root directory, then it's only one more button click to open up the example than new sketch (2 if you use ctrl+n)

It would still be a nice improvement if New/ctrl-N was just a shortcut to open that file, rather than the rather useless empty document, imo.

But sometimes an empty document is just what I require it to open with, as in case of if I'm doing a cut and paste of a sketch found online somewhere.

Lefty