Arduino programming language and the Arduino IDE are the most popular software development tools for the makers market, but it lacks some of the features found in professional tools like autocompletion and the ability to add breakpoints via a debugger, and that’s why the company announced its work on the Arduino Pro IDE in 2019. Work is now nearing completion with the release of the beta version of the Arduino IDE 2.0 based on the Eclipse Theia framework.
The user interface has been revamped with easy access to the newly added debugger, as well as the boards manager and libraries manager on the left side of the interface, the possibility to type the name of the board, and autocompletion of variables and functions from your code and installed libraries.
Pressing F12 while on a function name will bring you directly to the corresponding code in another tab, or alternatively, you can right-click to select Peek definition or press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to open a new section with the function code.
The interface is also said to be more responsive, and offers faster compilation.
As noted previously, another important change is the addition of a live debugger that allows you to insert breakpoints, check the call stack, watch the value of local and global variables, and more.
It should be noted that the debugger only supports Arduino boards based on the SAMD and Mbed platforms, meaning the MKR family, Nano 33 IoT, Nano 33 BLE, Portenta, and Zero). Support for third-party boards will be possible by adding configuration parameters and a debugging probe such as the Segger J-link to the JTAG pins on the board.
You can download and try out Arduino IDE 2.0 beta for the x86 64-bit version of Windows, Linux, or Mac OS operating system. For more information about other new features such as the ability to run multiple serial consoles in parallel, check out the getting started guide.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
