Ports menu changes coming

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PaulStoffregen

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I've been quiet the last few days, working on redesigning the way Teensy uses the Ports menu in Arduino

portsmenu.png

Here's a quick summary I recently posted on Twitter.

Working recently to improve how Teensy works with the Arduino IDE Tools-Ports menu. Here's an early screenshot. Click for the rest of this tweet thread for what's new & why it matters....

Historically, everything in Arduino was a serial port. Teensy has long offered USB options without Serial. But the menu has shown only Serial. All the non-Serial cases involved automatically finding your Teensy. While convenient, that's often confusing & kludgey.

For Arduino Yun, the IDE gained a "Discovery Manager" feature. Currently it only supports Serial and Network. It's also deep within the Java code, out of the Boards Manager's reach. But that's not stopping me! Teensy has its own installer for this sort of thing. :)

Teensy's new Discovery Manager allows the Ports menu to show every connected Teensy and which type of USB it's running: Serial, MIDI, RawHID, Keyboard, Audio, etc. No more board disappearing from the menu in non-Serial modes! You can always see what's connected.
portsmenu2.png

True hardware location is now used for the menu key (for these discovered ports), rather than an operating system name. As you reprogram your Teensy and it becomes other USB types, the same physical board always stays selected.
portsmenu3.png

If you only use Serial, no big deal. But I've always wanted to offer more choices, and admittedly the non-Serial modes have been confusing. I'm excited to finally make a Discovery Manager to (hopefully) make these non-Serial options as intuitive as regular Arduino use.

The Arduino IDE still uses global settings across all open windows, so you want to work with 2 or more boards, you'll still need to open 2 instances of the IDE. Someday I hope to tackle that issue, but getting this Ports menu improvement is a first necessary step.

My hope is to have a new beta version to try by the end of this week. It's working great on Linux. Yesterday I got it working on Macintosh, and today I'm starting the Windows version. This work also improves the serial monitor, so it can start faster after uploading, and (hopefully) be able to reconnect when unexpected issues or actions outside the ordinary cycle of uploading happen, like unplugging the cable. Going to need help with testing....
 
I do not understand this question. Could you be more specific? Or maybe explain what you mean, perhaps a little context?

In the case where TWO teensy units are connected to the same computer by USB. SerMon AFAIK allows only a single instance of SerMon to connect.

"is there any easy path to SerMon on a second port" at the same time with another 'instance' of SerMon?

Perhaps the only answer is the second IDE instance? One of the reasons I use TyCommander is ability to do a Serial Monitor on multiple ports at once. Most recent usage is the uNav AHRS thread where a second Teensy hangs off main Teensy on a Serial# port as 'debug' and that Teensy does proxy (ftdi) of that data to second USB.
 
I tried to explain with this.

The Arduino IDE still uses global settings across all open windows, so you want to work with 2 or more boards, you'll still need to open 2 instances of the IDE. Someday I hope to tackle that issue, but getting this Ports menu improvement is a first necessary step.

While this work is a necessary step before trying to extend Arduino, making those sorts of changes deeper within the Arduino IDE is definitely outside the scope of this work on just how we deal with the ports.
 
Very good. I read that in context of Compile/upload - I was just thinking of monitor : so that is 1::1 with the port for monitor as well and not easily spawned a second time.

Will work to test when you post.
 
Defragster, you really should give Sloeber (which is the Eclipse IDE with an Arduino plugin) a try. It allows to select the com port for the serial monitor independently of the currently connected Teensy(s).
 
Thierry: Interesting - may look at Sloeber someday. I just went to SublimeText for a new editor - which replicates my 1990's era most important feature 'file search' over folders and works very well. There was the Stino add-on that was making nice headway into running the Arduino build - but Dev went quiet some months back and it was then giving KurtE grief and I didn't put it on this new machine. Also I'm stuck on TyCommander as the way Multi Teensy uploading and Serial Monitoring should be done and it integrates well to the IDE.

Paul - is it true the T_3.5 has 256KB RAM? If so will that be in with this IDE update?
 
TyCommander works well with Sloeber, since the latter pulls all your configuration details from the Arduino-/Teensyduino install. That means that you will have to set up the path to the Teensyduino hardware details once in Sloeber, and then it will always follow. Thus, for example, if a new Teensyduino release comes out, you install it in Arduino as usual, and Sloeber will see and use these changes at its next launch.
 
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