Beta of Arduino IDE 2.0 programming software is available

By admin On Mar 3, 2021

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Arduino has released a beta of the second version of its programming software Arduino IDE. Arduino IDE 2.0 has a comprehensive code editor with autocomplete and a live debugger. The beta works on most official and third party Arduino boards.

Arduino Integrated Development Environment is used to write and upload programs to Arduino hardware and was developed in 2005. The IDE is licensed under a GNU General Public License and is completely open source. Arduino IDE now supports more than a thousand official and unofficial Arduino boards. The first version of the IDE has a simple interface aimed primarily at beginners, but has limited editing capabilities.

In addition to a complete visual makeover, Arduino IDE 2.0 has received a more extensive editor, making it useful for advanced users as well. The editor is responsive, has code indentation, block folding, auto-closing brackets, expression search and replace and comment toggling. Also, the new version has autocomplete of variables and functions.

The autocomplete function of IDE 2.0

The other feature of Arduino IDE 2.0 is that it has a live debugger, which makes it easier to find errors in pieces of code. In the debug panel, breakpoints can be set so that errors can be found in a specific piece of code and variables can be adjusted during debugging. The debugger supports all Arduino boards running on SAMN and Mbed platforms. For other third party boards there is a technical guide to set up the debugger.

According to Arduino, the development of Arduino IDE 2.0 has been made possible through donations and the purchase of original Arduino boards. The developers are paid to work on the open source software. The beta can be downloaded for x86-64bit Windows, Linux or macOS, although Arduino calls the software experimental and warns of possible bugs.

In 2019 Arduino already announced that it was working on a pro version of the Arduino IDE programming software. The alpha version was available for download at the time. That pro version gave users, among other things, a new board manager for managing connected devices and a library manager for managing installed code libraries, as well as the features now included in Arduino IDE 2.0. Arduino Pro IDE has now been renamed Arduino IDE 2.0. The Arduino Pro IDE website refers to Arduino IDE 2.0.