Windows development enviroment/IDE?

General discussions and questions abound development of code with MicroPython that is not hardware specific.
Target audience: MicroPython Users.
OttoMan28
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2018 11:06 pm

Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by OttoMan28 » Sat Oct 27, 2018 10:01 am

Greetings all,

When it comes to a Windows development environment/IDE what do you guys use?

I'm searching for a IDE where i can type the code, press 'upload' see the code run in a terminal windows.
Right now i have tinkered some stuff together with notepad++, ampy, putty and a batch file. Not very elegant :D

OM

HerbV
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:33 pm

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by HerbV » Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:39 pm

Hi, this is not quite the answer…

I'm using PyCharm Community and WinScp if FTP is available and Webrepl if not.
even there is an addIn for MicroPython I don't use it.

It's productive for me.

greetings Herbert

chrismas9
Posts: 152
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:07 am

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by chrismas9 » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:53 am

Try Thonny. It has an editor with run button that loads scripts directly to ram without needing to write to flash. It has a REPL window with auto detect of serial and USB-serial ports. When you finish debugging you can download your script to flash. It installs Cpython by default but comes with plugins for Pyboard and generic Micropython boards.

OttoMan28
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2018 11:06 pm

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by OttoMan28 » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:22 pm

But with Thonny (and others) then the problem is that runs in the PC ram, so you cant test, while you code along, stuff there are MP specific.
However I was not aware that Thonny did have a MP plugin. I'll check that part of. As well as the plugin for PyCharm

Thanks guys :D

bitninja
Posts: 165
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 4:09 pm
Location: Spring, Texas

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by bitninja » Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:51 pm

I've posted elsewhere in the forum about a tool I wrote myself based on Adafruit's ampy application.

https://github.com/joewez/AmpyFileManager

It's kind of personal tool, but you may find it useful. Unfortunately, the recent versions of ampy have been flaky, so if you do attempt to use it... be sure to use ampy 1.0.3.

Another IDE that also seems pretty good is...

https://dfrobot.gitbooks.io/upycraft/content/

Anyway, have fun!

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XIVN1987
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:18 am

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by XIVN1987 » Wed Oct 31, 2018 3:12 am

I think uPyCraft is the easiest used micropython development enviroment.

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josverl
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2017 4:22 pm

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by josverl » Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:05 pm

I currently use VSCode in combination with the PyMakr extension from pycomm.

I find vscode a good and free editor that runs on just about any platform , and pymakr allows for file sync with the MCU over Serial,Telnet or Sockets (and should work with generic boards for version 1.0.4and up)
vscode by default already comes with more than decent support for python (but I might be biased)

* upload / download
* run file
* run block of code

They have some provisions to work with the pycom Safe-Boot, so that needs to be turned off for all other boards.
I find them open to solve bugs and accept PRs as well

on the downside : you need to install nodejs as that is used to run just the connection

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/it ... r#overview

Delebel
Posts: 48
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Re: You can debug but only with your hands tied...: (

Post by Delebel » Mon May 27, 2019 5:12 pm

Coming from a traditional C environment with full debugging I find micro-python very frustrating. Not only I'm loss with the coding rules and conventions of python but for debugging I feel I have my hands tied since I can't even stop the code at the problem area to investigate. This despite all the recommendation from other users that the REPL approach to debug each function one at a time is all that is needed. I tried a few different IDEs and they all fall short of providing the means to troubleshoot so I can feel like I'm in the driver seat. I've found one IDE (Zerynth) that claims to provide virtual debugging for your target board. However its a huge package that from what I've read ends up hiding what is being downloaded to the target which is counter intuitive to my goal of learning how micropython works under the hood.

This post is only to comment I do not expect a reply...Denis

stijn
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Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 9:13 am

Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by stijn » Mon May 27, 2019 6:24 pm

Delebel wrote:
Mon May 27, 2019 5:12 pm
Coming from a traditional C environment with full debugging I find micro-python very frustrating.
I have debugged C code on microcontrollers where the only way to know what the code is doing is setting digital I/O, so it can get worse than debugging MicroPython, where at least you can sprinkle print() statements all over the place :D
The REPL is ok but gets tiresome quickly with the repeated typing and copy-pasting and whatnot.
So since there's no Python-level debugging and you want to figure out what MicroPython does under the hood and debug it like you debug your C, your best bet is to effectively debug C on the unix or windows ports. What you could do is make sure your hardware-specific code is separate from the logic you want to debug, then run that logic on one of those ports and set breakpoints in the C code at VM level. It's fairly easy to grasp what goes on there, start in mp_execute_bytecode() for instance.

Delebel
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Re: Windows development enviroment/IDE?

Post by Delebel » Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:42 pm

Thanks for your response. I can tell its going to be a challenge to debug with micropython. I think so far PyCharm seems to be the most debug friendly IDE for the pyboard except its a big environment to learn for a beginner.

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