Before entering in the subject, I have a big puzzle to solve. Why to use another IDE for Arduino? The standard IDE has almost anything I need to build an autonomous robot, access libraries, I can access a large library of tutorials and write code in a friendly manner. Could Electron to add more value to the standard IDE for Arduino boards?
I will pass over some reasons such as the standard IDE is ugly, ancient, and should be improved. At the same time I discover a very important feature to Electron: the mobility. Since it is an HTML based tool, it can be accessed remotely and used from anywhere.
Another reason to use the Electron IDE is the library management tool. You can add and use a library at a click away, and more than that, once added you can access all the libraries from the Web.
Electron GUI
The Electron IDE is built from scratch and written in NodeJS and HTML. Even it’s an HTML tool, it is designed to run locally as an application.
Installation
- you should have NodeJS and NPM installed
- you should have the regular Arduino IDE installed
- download the code: git clone
- install all deps with cd ElectronIDE; npm install
- modify settings.js to fit your environment
- run node electron
- open your browser to http://localhost:54329/
The Electron IDE is designed especially for users able to work from anywhere by accessing the tool using a Web address and start building your sketch.
