Arduino IDE 2.0 - Overview and New Features

Arduino IDE 2.0 has been officially released. The new IDE, which is used to program Arduino and other microcontroller boards, has been overhauled to make it a modern editor with a more responsive interface and faster compilation times. Here is my overview and summary of the new features.

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#garyexplains

[Nabilphysics]

After more than 15 years of development, they realized "Auto-Completion" exists on this earth.

[marufbepary]

This is basically Visual Studio Code but restructured for Arduino.

[christophbeeler]

You skipped the debugger button. I think it’s the biggest feature to finally have the ability to add breakpoints etc. I only buy Arduino Zeros or similar for that reason

[ScottLahteine]

For the new IDE to be a real improvement for my project (Marlin Firmware) I've got to look at the build system itself and see if it's scriptable in the way that PlatformIO is scriptable (through SCONS), and look deeper at the IDE itself and see if it's possible to make extensions with custom UI. Those elements are really essential because Marlin targets so many different platforms and it can be a hassle (without the "Auto Build Marlin" extension) to find and use the right platform and environment for the build. I've done a lot to simplify and optimize the build within VSCode, so it would be great to be able to repurpose that work for Arduino IDE.

[relic]

I like the upgrade for the theming, but there doesn't seem to be too many new features and it very much feels like the old IDE. It just bugs me that they haven't implemented a tree view for your project files rather than having a tab for each individual file.

[yesihavereadit]

I tried it for the ecg ad8232 heart monitor . The serial monitor works OK on the old one, you get a nice graph of your heart signals, doesn't on the new one the x axis us too fast

[markuszingg]

I would have expected to FINALLY get a propper debugger for the IDE. What you list is all nice, but seriousely, what the arduino universe is missing for ages is a propper debugger.

[floppa]

This is sweet. I have been working quite a bit myself with Microsoft's Monaco (the code editor engine from VS Code and many other projects). I also hope that in the future this could work directly in the browser, with a webassembly port of the compiler and the Web USB API.

[ubidefeo]

Hey Gary!
Thank you for sharing your review, the team is very happy with it, especially since you showed some love for Remote Sketch integration.
If you're interested in doing a video for IoT Cloud and want some insider preview let me know, I'll be happy to answer questions :)

[Stamatis_Misirlis]

Wish list:
- I would like to see simultaneously two pieces of the code.
Something like double window, with separate scrolling.
- Step by step execution of the code, highlighting the current line.

[ArniesTech]

Always refreahing to listen to you, Gary 💪😎

[CrippleX]

I really wonder why they haven't just written a VSCode extension. It would've saved them a lot of time, it's an editor/IDE that many people are already familiar with and is easy to learn for beginners.

I know that there's an unofficial extension and that Microsoft is working on one but they could've opted to ditch the dedicated IDE and just make extensions for existing IDEs.

[ericjin]

Such a big improvement (compared w ver.1), but I personally prefer platformio

[schrodingerscat]

Finally a basically functional IDE rather than the glorified text editor of the current IDE. This is a huge leap forward but it still lacks a lot of basic functionality you would expect from a decent development tool.

[chriscauwelier]

To me, it seems like progress. I'm not your seasoned C++ developer, but it seems to be nice, this linting is good, it still has the familiar microcontroller ecosystem, but I can't find an arm-based download. So for now, platformio it still is, although I find it very intimidating to work with, so many ways to scr*w things up.
But thanks anyway, Garry. I like your explanations and the form you bring it.

[skarfie]

I would have preferred if they just worked on a vscode extension. At least I prefer to use only one ide for everything

[munocat]

I glad they still off 2.0 for download, so you don’t need to have web access. Hopefully they will bring an arm linux version

[EngineeringVignettes]

A fair analysis of this update would have included some comment on the (still!) missing debugger support.

[EcoHamletsUK]

No Linux ARM version, so I need to stick with v1, as I use a Raspberry Pi on my electronics workbench.

[eyalbarlev]

Thanks for the explanatory video, Did the compiler system go through a change as well ? I work with ESP32 and every small change recompiles all files and dependencies all over.