Prior to v2.3.3, I had to add this string to my Preferences, Additional board manager URL:
https://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json
With v2.3.3, do I need to keep this setting in order to download sketches to my Adafruit ESP8266 boards?
ALL of your board entries stay the same as they were. If you only work with 8266 then just that one entry. Without it the IDE doesn't have access to the hardware specific libraries. Many programmers will have several board entries, for instance, I have 8.
yes
Did you check if it's still there after the upgrade?
I did the upgrade and the entry is still in the additional board manager URL. To test, I removed the additional board manager url entry and the ESP8266 boards are still there (after a restart of the IDE).
I suspect that the only side effect of removing the entry in the additional board manager URL is that you will no longer get offers for upgrade of that board package.
I had 3 entries for v2.3.2 (ESP8266, ESP32 and Raspberry Pi/RP2040) but I only added ESP8266 and RP2040 for v2.3.3 and all is good. It appears the Adafruit ESP32 boards are now part of the ESP32 core.
NO, the old board files are in the usual place but now you will not get notified of updates. Why did they change in the first place, upgrading from 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 is just an upgrade in place, no need to uninstall anything. Here is what your additional boards manager should look like.
https://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json
https://espressif.github.io/arduino-esp32/package_esp32_index.json
https://github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico/releases/download/global/package_rp2040_index.json
Here are the actual libraries under (user)/Library/Arduino15/packages
As you can see, I have a few additional entries in my boards manager URL's.
so you use the Arduino's ESP32 core fork for the Arduino Nano ESP32. but that is an older version of the ESP32 platform
Please tell @k5map what your operating system is before he/she starts looking for Library directory.
Ah yes, sorry, that is on a Mac, not sure what it is on other OS. Concept is the same, just the names are different.
Hi @k5map.
First of all, please note that the term we use in the Arduino world is "upload", not "download". Please be careful to use the standard terminology in your communications here on the Arduino Forum so that we can avoid any misunderstandings.
As for your question, it is not required to have this URL in the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference in order to upload sketches.
However, you should leave the URL in your preferences. The reason is that Arduino IDE will periodically check that URL to see if a new version of the "esp8266" boards platform is available. If it finds a new version has been released, Arduino IDE will notify you of this and offer to update the platform. So if you remove the URL from your preferences then you will eventually end up using an outdated version of the platform and might miss out on some important enhancements or bug fixes.
When I checked the Espressif website, it shows v3.0.5 as the latest; which is also the same version installed by the IDE. Am I missing something?
Thanks for the clarification...
Why are you asking?
Based on what I read on the Adafruit website, they advise to add the URL for the ESP32. But that could be dated info since v2.3.3 appears to have the latest version of board driver/firmware
The IDE does not have the latest.
The IDE will have the version that you did install.
It is outdated in a sense.
Previously it was required, as the Adafruit documentation and other documentation/tutorials will tell you, but at the time Arduino released the Nano ESP32 board, for some reason they added the "esp32" boards platform to the list of platforms that are offered in the Arduino IDE Boards Manager by default, without having to put a URL in your "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference.
However, it is still probably good advice to put the official esp32 platform's URL in your "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference. The reason I say this is that, even though it is up to date now, since the time the "esp32" boards platform was added to the primary package index, the Arduino developers have done a really bad job at keeping it updated. So it might be that, after the ESP32 developers make a new release, it takes a long time before the update is available from the primary package index, causing you to miss out on important fixes or enhancements. If you put the official esp32 platform's URL in your "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference then you ensure that you will always get notifications for updates to the platform as soon as they come out.
It does now have the latest version 3.0.5.
As I mentioned above, up until recently the entries for the "esp32" platform in the primary package index were way outdated, but it is now up to date so you can install the latest version 3.0.5 of the "esp32" boards platform from the Arduino IDE Boards Manager without having to add the extra package index URL to the IDE preferences.
Maybe I should have expressed myself better. The IDE 2.x does not come with board packages and therefore has nothing to do with the version that is available.
I know that you know how it works 
Yes, the thing that has to do with which platforms, and which versions of each platform are available for installation from the Boards Manager by default is the primary package index file:
https://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json
The Arduino IDE Boards Manager downloads this from the Internet periodically. This means that all versions of Arduino IDE offer the same list of platforms and platform versions.
As I mentioned in my previous reply, the primary package index now contains entries for all versions of the "esp32" boards platform.
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