Espruino Web IDE

A VT100 Serial Terminal as a Web App (with both syntax highlighted and graphical editors) - designed for writing code on microcontrollers that use the Espruino JavaScript interpreter. It can also run natively via Node.js and Electron, or a version

This is a Chrome Web App (mainly) that uses chome.serial to access your PC's serial port. You can download it from the Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/espruino-serial-terminal/bleoifhkdalbjfbobjackfdifdneehpo

It implements basic VT100 terminal features (up/down/left/right/etc) - enough for you to write code using the Espruino. You can also use the right-hand pane to write JavaScript code on the PC, and can then click the 'transfer' icon to send that code directly down the Serial Port.

Version	Communications	Benefits
Web Version	Audio, Bluetooth Low Energy (via Web Bluetooth) and USB/Serial via WebSerial	RECOMMENDED - Just go to a URL
Chrome Web App	USB, Serial, Audio, TCP/IP	Easy to install from Chrome Web Store - but Google are deprecating the web store
Node.js App / NW.js app	USB, Serial, Bluetooth Low Energy	Can be run on systems without Chrome web browser

The development of this app is supported by purchases of official Espruino boards as well as the generous donations of my supporters on Patreon

Running online

This is how we'd recommend using the IDE. You can use:

Our hosted IDE: https://espruino.com/ide
'master' branch hosted on GitHub Pages: https://espruino.github.io/EspruinoWebIDE/
Or your own fork of this repository running on any HTTPS Server (eg GitHub Pages)
- If you want to run your fork locally, see Installing from GitHub in this readme.

Installing From Chrome Web Store

This is deprecated by Google and may be removed soon:

Install the Chrome Web Browser
Go Here to find the app in the Chrome Web Store
Click 'Install'
Click 'Launch App'

Installing from NPM

If you have an up to date version of Node.js and NPM, you can execute the commands:

On Linux, sudo apt-get install build-essential libudev-dev
sudo npm install nw -g
sudo npm install espruino-web-ide -g
To enable BLE support: sudo setcap cap_net_raw+eip $(eval readlink -f $(which node))
espruino-web-ide

Note: For command-line access you might also want to take a look at EspruinoTools

Note 2: If you're not seeing any options for devices to connect to, it might be because your nw.js and node versions don't match. If that's the case you need to manually rebuild all the 'native' modules.

npm install -g nw-gyp
# Now, for directory in node_modules with a binding.gyp file...
# target should match the nw.js version in node_modules/nw/package.json
nw-gyp rebuild --target=0.18.6 --arch=x64

Installing from GitHub (Latest Version)

You need to obtain both the EspruinoWebIDE repository and the EspruinoTools repository, a submodule used in the Web IDE. A simple way to obtain both repositories is via the git command:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/espruino/EspruinoWebIDE.git

This will clone both the EspruinoWebIDE repository and the submodule dependencies. Alternatively, you can download or clone both repositories individually following the steps below:

Download the files in EspruinoWebIDE to an EspruinoWebIDE directory on your PC (either as a ZIP File, or using git)
Download the files in EspruinoTools into the EspruinoWebIDE/EspruinoTools on your PC (either as a ZIP File, or using git)

Running in Node.js as a website (recommended)

This is the version that is also available at https://espruino.com/ide

Go to the EspruinoWebIDE directory
Run npm install
Run npm run web
Open the link written in your terminal, it will look something like http://localhost:3000

Running in Node.js as an application

This version is no longer maintained.

Go to the EspruinoWebIDE directory
Run sudo npm install nw -g
Run npm install
Run npm start

Chrome Permissions

This web app requires the following permissions:

Serial port access : So that it can access the Espruino board via USB/Serial
Webcam access : So that when you click the little person icon in the top-right of the terminal window, you can overlay the terminal on a live video feed
Audio access: if you want to communicate with Espruino using your headphone jack
Filesystem/storage access : For loading/saving your JavaScript files to your local disk

Using

Run the Web app
Click the Help (?) icon, then the Tour button to get a guided tour.

Running with Node.js/Electron and don't see any ports when you try and connect? You're probably using a version of Node.js that doesn't match Electron. This causes NPM to load binary modules (for serialport and bleat) that are for the old version of Node and that won't work in Electron. To fix it, update Node.js, delete node_modules and run npm install again.

Debugging with NW In order to debug the WebIDE using DevTools you need to install the SDK flavor of nw. This can be done with npm install -g nw --nwjs_build_type=sdk instead of just npm install -g nw. Once the SDK flavor is installed you can specify a remote-debug port like this nw --remote-debugging-port=9222 .

Contributing

Contributions are welcome - especially if they make the Web IDE easier to use for newcomers!

Getting Started

Espruino Web IDE expects the EspruinoTools repository to be in EspruinoWebIDE/EspruinoTools. If you're using Git, make sure you add it using the command:

git submodule add git@github.com:espruino/EspruinoTools.git

Code Style

Please stick to a K&R style with no tabs and 2 spaces per indent
Filenames should start with a lowerCase letter, and different words should be capitalised, not split with underscores

Code Outline

Core functionality goes in js/core, Plugins go in js/plugins. See plugins/_examplePlugin.js for an example layout
Plugins/core need to implement in init function, which is called when the document (and settings) have loaded.
Plugins can respond to specific events using Espruino.addProcessor. For instance you can use Espruino.addProcessor("transformForEspruino", function (data,callback) { .. }) and can modify code before it is sent to Espruino.
Icons are added using Espruino.Core.App.addIcon and are generally added from JsvaScript file that performs the operation
Config is stored in Espruino.Config.FOO and is changed with Espruino.Config.set("FOO", value). Espruino.Core.Config.add can be used to add an option to the Settings menu.
Annoyingly, right now plugins still have to be loaded via a <script> tag in main.html