I'm fairly new to the Arduino and have written a few programs that work. But the programming environment seems unhandy and I don't know how to change it. I would appreciate any help on any of the following questions/problems:
How can I copy/paste the Serial Monitor output to an external program like MS Excel or Word? I can highlight several lines of output but right-clicking the mouse doesn't show the copy/paste menu.
When arduino.exe first starts up, it always opens a file that I haven't used. Can I make arduino.exe open the last file that I used, instead of some other file?
When I print my program, the right side of long statements is cut off. The printing program doesn't seem to know the width of the paper, and/or doesn't wrap the printed line so I can see the entire line. Is there any easy way to make the Arduino environment print the entire line, wrapping it if necessary?
When I print my program, the printed output is in various colors, but it is very light, so that it is difficult to read. The printed output needs to be made bold, or perhaps a different font, but I haven't found any way to do that. Is this possible?
For #2, if you double click on a .pde file, the Arduino IDE will be launched, and that file will be loaded.
For #3, I'd suggest not typing such long lines of code. Set the IDE window width to what prints reasonably well, and stop typing when the cursor gets to the edge.
Alternatively, you could select the code, and paste it into Notepad or other text editor, and print it from there. This would take care of #4, too, since formatting is done by the IDE on the fly, not embedded in the document.
Thanks for your comments. I have looked at the preferences.txt file, which has 132 lines and no explanation that I can find. Of course, I could experiment with each line and try to figure out what it does, but it would be much more efficient if there was an explanation somewhere. Is there an explanation somewhere for the preferences.txt file?
How can I copy/paste the Serial Monitor output to an external program like MS Excel or Word? I can highlight several lines of output but right-clicking the mouse doesn't show the copy/paste menu.
Try Ctrl + c after highlighting. Ctrl + v will paste. Also, Ctrl + a will select all text in the serial monitor.
When arduino.exe first starts up, it always opens a file that I haven't used. Can I make arduino.exe open the last file that I used, instead of some other file?
There is a bug in the current release. Try using Ctrl + Q to close the program. The next time you start up it should remember your last program(s) open. You must continue using Ctrl + Q for this to keep working.
When I print my program, the right side of long statements is cut off. The printing program doesn't seem to know the width of the paper, and/or doesn't wrap the printed line so I can see the entire line. Is there any easy way to make the Arduino environment print the entire line, wrapping it if necessary?
When I print my program, the printed output is in various colors, but it is very light, so that it is difficult to read. The printed output needs to be made bold, or perhaps a different font, but I haven't found any way to do that. Is this possible?
You could copy your program text to a Word document or similar. Are you really printing programs out that often?
Thanks !!! Ctrl-C, A, and Q work as described. That's what I was looking for. Is that documented anywhere? I searched for CTRL but couldn't find it anywhere.
Also, I print a program occasionally when I want to analyze it or plan it more thoroughly. I have already copied it to MS Word and back, but, since there is already a Print command within Arduino, it would be more convenient if I could more effectively control the printing from within the Arduino environment.