Mbed Studio is a good IDE to start with but, as I get familiar with it I’m starting to notice some shortcomings. Here is a list of “nice to have” features (I’m talking about the Windows version here):
Output window:
Use context menu (right mouse click) and standard Ctrl+ key combinations to select all, copy, and clear the history.
Offer the config option to automatically clear the output screen before starting a new compilation
Serial Monitor:
Missing selection highlight
Use context menu (right mouse click) for typical functions and associated Ctrl+ key combinations for common functions like select all, copy and clear.
Editor window:
Better auto formatting (indenting of lines enclosed after typing the closing curled bracket ‘}’.
Auto-completion is sometimes too intrusive (i.e. when defining a new symbol hitting enter will change it to something it finds somewhere, no questions asked ). Suggestions must be just that, use an arrow key to select one of them if the users wishes.
Configuration:
Use more (Windows) conventional locations for user data (default to C:\Users\username\Documents).
Allow the user to select the project location AND output directories. Follow Visual Studio conventions.
many developers store project data is in a secondary DATA drive or a server.
Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it. Let me provide some answers:
Output window and Serial Monitor
Very good suggestions. We are planning to revisit both panels soon so you can definitely expect improvements in this area.
Editor window
I agree that auto-formatting can be improved. We should be able to add it soon after switching to clangd version 9 (Studio is currently using version 8). There was a limitation that was preventing an update but we are close to resolving it.
We will investigate options to make auto-completion less intrusive
Configuration
Not using a C:\Users\username\Documents as a default location for workspace was a decision we made to protect users. This location often has Cloud synchronization enabled by default to services like OneDrive. Mbed Programs unfortunately are quite big at the moment due to the presence of Mbed OS (1 GB) in each program. We decided then to use a different default path but still do not block user from switching to a workspace in any place on the disk. It is possible that we will revisit this decision in the future. Especially as we are working on solutions like a shared version of Mbed OS (It has just been introduced in version 1.2.0).
Studio supports it already. You can select any workspace on your disk. It can be also on a different drive. Studio also has a mode to work with a single program in the workspace. To enable it simply choose a Mbed program directly when selecting a workspace.
Hi Arek,
Thanks for the return. I’m happy to help.
Certainly I’m not 100% familiar with Studio and missed some details already there.
One other thing that came up is that I’m trying to debug the debug functionality that stop working and crash when invoked. The output window shows the command output and trace back, but not the actual command line. It would be of great help to see the actual command line in this case.
Where can I find the debug command line?, and, is the output saved somewhere?
When creating a new program in Mbed Studio 1.2 we’re now given a choice for Mbed OS Location, but our choice is not remembered, or preferably we are not given a means for the system to remember our choice.
I see in Preferences there is a category “LibraryManagement” which stores the shared MbedOS path, so it seems plausible to then create an option to remember user’s Mbed OS location preference.
Hi Arek,
It seems that the debug server connection discussed in this thread will be fixed.
Other thing discussed there is the “feature”? of MBed Studio to automatically update itself when a new version is available without asking permission to the user. Will the next version comming out 1.3.1 have the option to turn it off and only notify the user that a new version is available?. That will be consistent with the way new libraries on GitHub are notified, but not automatically updated in the project.
