Soldered MicroPython Helper

⚠️ Experimental Extension
Use at your own risk. This extension is actively being developed.

A MicroPython-focused helper for working with ESP-based boards directly inside Visual Studio Code.

🔧 Features

• Flash firmware to boards
• Upload and delete .py files
• Live serial output monitoring
• Fetch libraries and examples from Soldered's GitHub
• Fully powered by mpremote and esptool.py

Required Installations and Setup

1. Node.js and npm

   • Needed to run and package VSCode extensions.
   • Download: https://nodejs.org/

2. Visual Studio Code

   • Obviously needed to run the extension.
   • Download: https://code.visualstudio.com/

3. Python 3.x

   • Required to run esptool and mpremote commands.
   • Download: https://www.python.org/downloads/

4. Python packages: Install these packages globally or in a virtual environment accessible to your system PATH.

   pip install esptool mpremote

5. Serial Port Support:

   • The extension uses the serialport npm package to list serial devices.
   • This requires native build tools on your system.

   For Windows:

   npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

   Or follow instructions for windows-build-tools here: https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows-build-tools

   For macOS:

   • Install Xcode Command Line Tools:

   xcode-select --install

   For Linux:

   • Make sure you have build-essential and Python development headers installed.

   sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev

6. Install serialport npm package in your extension folder

   npm install serialport

7. Make sure your Python executable and scripts (esptool and mpremote) are in your PATH environment variable so the extension can invoke them via exec.

8. Permission to access serial ports:

   • On Linux/macOS you may need to add your user to the dialout or uucp group or use sudo for accessing serial ports.
   • On Windows, running VSCode as administrator can help with serial port access.

Summary of commands to run

# Install Python packages
pip install esptool mpremote

# Install serialport npm package
npm install serialport

# For running the ext
npm run vscode:prepublish 

# To use open the src/extension.ts and run (f5) 

After this setup, your VSCode extension should be able to use serial ports and run esptool and mpremote commands as intended.