(what happened to TTMYGH #00002? It's on one of my other blogs because TTMMGH happen everywhere all the time. Go check out my News Stand you'll see the TTMYGH #00002 title in there.)
You probably know that I pretend to program Arduino and ESP(n) boards. And am reallt great and copy/paste coding with minor edits.
Nothing. Happens. Quickly. On this laptop... Install the latest IDE from arduino cc using Chocolatey - 15 minutes later have the newest version. Excited. Click that icon!
Around five minutes later, the IDE window finally opens. Ooh! Look! It offers to update the libraries automagically!
Five minutes later I can finally type into the sketch panel. Realise it's time to go make dinner, close the IDE and promise to get back to it really soon, okay?
Fast forward to next day. Click the desktop icon just as time clicks over to 12:11. Wait. Wait. Wait.
 |
| Is it a bird? No! It's Nightcafe's idea of an RP2040 with bluebird wings flying along, with some extra elements added by myself and PaintDotNet! This will mean more when you scroll down a bit. |
12:15, IDE opens. Asks if it should auto-update libraries. Yes! Yes! Please yes! The most annoying thing on the old IDE has been fixed!
But wait.
. . .
And wait a bit more.
Can't install NTP because NTP already exists. ???
Delete NTP folder from library folder, now have to do the 'update' manually. BUT WHICH ONE?
I have this memory - "Staub." Ah yes, there's his NTP library, install that.
By now it's 12:29 and I get a closer look at the sketch panel - why does it have TWO sketches open? Oh, hang on, whatever I type in one, mirrors to the other. Hmmm...
WOULDN'T IT BE LOVELY IF THE FIRST THING THE IDE OPENED WAS A "WHAT'S NEW IN THIS VERSION" DOCUMENT? ("Tell him he's dreaming, luv.")
And now - let's close and re-open it now, to see if it'll do another library update or just open a bit quicker seeing it's already run once today. But nope. Four minutes later it finally opens - and asks to update all the other libraries that it didn't do before. Because when you hit one snag with one library, you just give up, right?
(I've stopped timing it by now. I know when to give up and stop giving myself ulcers.)
Did I mention that I updated all the libraries in the old version less than a week ago. To save time with the upgrade? (hehehehehe snark grumble grump I shouldn't have bothered.) And here it was, it took 11 minutes to auto-upgrade just TWO libraries.
Libraries done, now on to boards. Look under preferences for the traditional URL - blank! Do you know how may sites you have to search before you find the right Boards Manager URLs for ESP(n) boards?
Where are my dra... Where are my ESP32 and ESP8266 boards now?!! The space is still there to add the URL in Preferences but... - Ooh. Look. Sidebar has an icon I could swear looks like it'd pull up a ... -
Boards Manager! And it does! And boards manager says it has ESP32 and ESP8266 boards already installed. - Umm - okay. So why then does it also have the "Install" button enabled? I leave this alone for now - no telling where THAT could end. For now, I add the RP2040 boards (!!!! OMGWTFBBQ!) because I've been dying to try the two RPi boards I've had sitting there while I avoided learning Python. Maybe now I can play around with them finally. I
ll get back to you once I've had a bit more of a play with the IDE.
Footer
If you can, take a look at my News Stand where you'll see live updated links to everything I publish; or take a subscription to my weekly newsletter where you'll receive the same information in your inbox for free; Or contact me via the webform or directly email me if you'd like to help; or donate either directly or at my Ko-Fi page for the price of a coffee. Or even make a regular monthly donation there. (Check why you should donate here.) I might even be able to afford a laptop that doesn't take 15 minutes to load the IDE one day . . .
