I'm not sure I understood correctly what you mean by "normal one". Please provide a more detailed description to help me to understand it.
Normal as in current one window code and serial monitor.
The current one IDE 2.x.x uses.
OK, I understand. The feature request was for a "tear off" design, where the Serial Monitor could be "undocked" from the current location in a panel of the main Arduino IDE window and moved to a separate window. However, my impression has been that the project managers plan is to move it permanently to a separate window, just like Arduino IDE 1.x Serial Monitor/Plotter and the Arduino IDE 2.x Serial Plotter, in which case the answer to your question would be "no".
From the links Dougl shared, maybe the recent work on the Eclipse Theia IDE framework Arduino IDE 2.x is built on will make it more feasible to implement this in a way that allows the user to choose the location of Serial Monitor.
Oh. That’s a bummer(for me) as I like to use full screen.
Well when I upgrade my Mac to Ventura I could use stage manager to do that.
+1 for the separate window. I typically use this as two windows overlapping, I can see the code and flip to the window to see the output. This is a good use of screen real estate which is wider than its tall.
The small window at the bottom is no good as you have to trade one set of window space for another and have a bunch of un-used desktop space doing nothing. Floating windows are part of the operating system, so lets use them as intended.
Its not easy to use a separate tool for serial monitoring, since you have to close it each time you compile and download, which slows things down.
A workaround on the ESP32 family is to use Over the Air (OTA) firmware updates, then use a separate tool such as PuTTY for the serial port monitoring and just forget about the Arduino provided one in the IDE
You can open a new sketch (next to the one that you're working on) and switch the serial monitor in there on, resize to need and view the output in the new sketch.
Thanks.
This is not great either though, since you can't close the code window, that just closes the whole ide session, so you can't make it fully focused on the serial output.
I've also found that the library manager and boards manager jam themselves in at the left, meaning that you have to resize windows to see the content. The older IDE was far better with windows, rather than this constant having to trade one piece of screen real estate for a different function all the time.
I'm not loving the new IDE so far
"Slows things down" compared to the "at least check to see if anything needs compiled" process?
We could define signals to be sent to the external serial monitor to release/regrab the serial port.
That should be pretty easy for linux and MacOS; I assume windows has some sort of IPC signal mechanism?
(If the chose monitor doesn't support the signal mechanism, then code would default to the slower close/reopen method.)
The previously implemented v1.x separate window that remained open during firmware updates was convenient as compared to something like PuTTY or minicom which needs to be opened manually after the firmware update completed and closed before the compile got to wanting to seize the port for the firmware download part. This is why I said its slower, you have to do these extra steps and invariably you forget to do one of them and have to do it again as the build process doesn't give any retry mechanism, it just fails and needs to be re-run again.
You could spawn a specific terminal application, such as PuTTY and that has the option for command line options to specify the profile to load. Similarly, as the process will be owned by the active user, then the standard OS kill process functionality should be able to terminate it too.
The use of an external application would be ideal and it gives the benefit that better functionality can be achieved. For example, I use ANSI codes in my sketches to colour some output, i.e. when errors occur or for things like major points in the app such as boot-up, displaying the code version, etc.
Thanks, that changes my life
...and I do feel a bit dumb that I did not have this idea on my own...
In the Arduino IDE version 2.0 (and newer), the Serial Monitor has been integrated
into the main IDE window, and there is no built-in option to detach it into a
seprate windows as you could in version 1.8. However, you can achive a similar
effect by using the following method:
Method 1: Use an External Serial Terminal Program:
You can use an external serial terminal program to interact with your Arduino board, and this program can be run in a separate window on one of your multiple monitors.
- Download an External Serial Terminal Program: There are several free and popular serial terminal programs available, such as PuTTY (for Windows), CoolTerm (for macOS), or GtkTerm (for Linux). Download and install one of these software on your computer.
- Connect Your Arduino: Connect your Arduino board to your computer using a USB cable.
- Upload Your Sketch: Use the Arduino IDE to upload your sketch to the Arduino board as usual.
- Open the External Serial Terminal: Launch the external serial terminal program you installed earlier.
- Configure Serial Port: In the serial terminal program, configure the serial port settings to match the settings used in your Arduino sketch (e.g., baud rate, data bits, stop bits, and parity). You can find the serial port information in your Arduino sketch.
- Open the Serial Connection: Once configured, open the serial connection in the external terminal program. You should now see the serial output from your Arduino in this separate window.
Now, you can have the external serial terminal program running on one of your monitors, providing a separate window for monitoring the serial data from your Arduino.
Method 2: Use Multiple Arduino IDE Instances:
While it doesn't create a truly separate window, you can also open multiple instances of the Arduino IDE on different monitors to have separate Serial Monitors.
- Open Multiple Instances: Launch the Arduino IDE as many times as you need on different monitors.
- Configure Each Instance: In each instance of the Arduino IDE, open your sketch, select the correct board and port, and then click the "Serial Monitor" icon. Each instance will have its Serial Monitor within its window.
This method allows you to have multiple instances of the Arduino IDE, each with its Serial Monitor, on different monitors. However, it's not a true separation into separate windows but rather multiple instances of the IDE.
Choose the method that suits your workflow and monitor setup best.
Why didn't they just leave it how it used to be?
Hi There,
I created an example of how this could work in VS Code.
(I uploaded a longer screencast to here. Note that the link might get disappear without any notice.)
I have noticed that VS Code natively supports floating editor windows from the 1.85
version (microsoft/vscode#10121). Although not every view can be detached at the moment (microsoft/vscode#193267), moving a terminal into a separate view already works with VS Code Insiders.
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I will stay with 1.8 until it no longer works. It is a bit quirky but consistent.
Hello, just go to file>New sketch; then in the new window you connect to the serial monitor on the same port. When you send one in the sketch, it will not be necessary to disconnect from the board in this new window, as it will remain idle for your project window to send the code.
gambiarra (Brazilian expression) is always the solution.
The split screen sketch/monitor isn't something I like.
Here's my vote for a return of the old arrangement.
look at this post: IDE 2.3.2 - view serial monitor output in a separate window
I recently tried 2.3.2 and it works quite well. I'm also surprised it was designed that way, but it's free and incredible as a teaching tool !
2 posts were split to a new topic: No data plotted in Serial Plotter
I use Linux and generally have from 8 to 12 workspace. I can have multiple copies of the IDE in each workspace and additional copies on other workspace, all different files. I use Genny and generally keep the files in that for editing. This works nice as I can have many more IDEs open then I have USB ports.