Slides from my beginners workshop on the great Open Source extension for Visual Studio Code called PlatformIO. Covers getting started using an Arduino or ESP32 as well as the GIT integration.

1. @jenschr
Getting started
with PlatformIO

2. Download and install VS Code

3. Visual Studio Code
as a code editor

4. Download and set up PlatformIO
Click Extension Manager icon on the left toolbar
1. Open Extension
Manager
2. Search for
“PlatformIO”
3. Install the
PlatformIO IDE
1.
2.
3.

6. Lets get started
1.
2.
3.
1. Click the PlatformIO icon
2. Click the “Open” item to open the
start page
3. Click the “New Project” button

7. Configure your project
Select your microcontroller in the Boards menu
Select Arduino UNO, ESP32 or any
other microcontroller you have
brought with you.
Make sure to select the exact variant
if there are multiple versions (such
as for ESP32 based boards)

8. Trust
yourself!

9. Hello world!

10. edit the file src/main.cpp
Hello World
2.
1.
1. Click the Explorer icon to show
the files generated
2. Double-click the pre-defined
source file to open it in the editor
This is how you’ll start every project
created with the Arduino framework.

11. Start typing!

12. Does it compile?
1.
1. Click the PlatformIO icon to
show the commands
2. Click the Build option to compile
the code
If there are no errors, you typed it all
correctly. If you get an error - read it
carefully and raise your hand if you
don’t understand how to fix it
There are many shortcuts for the
command:
- Control-Option-B / Ctrl-Alt-B
- Control-P, PlatformIO: Build
2.

13. Does it compile?

14. Does it compile?

15. Uploading
To the board
1.
1. Click the PlatformIO icon to
show the commands
2. Click the Upload option to
compile the code
A terminal windows should open and
lots of text should scroll by -
hopefully with a [SUCCESS]
message at the end.
There are many shortcuts for the
command:
- Control-Option-U / Ctrl-Alt-U
- Control-P, PlatformIO: Upload
2.

16. • Click the PlatformIO icon to show the
commands
• Click the Monitor option to open a
terminal window that shows the
“Hello world” text from the
microcontroller
• It will print out the text once every
second - or rather every 1000
milliseconds.
• Microcontrollers are very precise, so
you could even ask it to wait a
microsecond, but that would produce
a massive stream of “Hello world”
messages.
Did it work?
see it talk back to us
1.
2.

17. Workflow
• Create a Project
• Either in a New > Window, or in the same window
• Setup the project for your development board
• Adjust platformio.ini (if required)
• Write code
• Upload to test
• Use monitor to see the debug output

18. Hello blinky!

19. Hello World for hardware should always blink a LED!
Let’s make it proper

20. Using libraries

21. with your micro
1. Click the PlatformIO icon
2. Click the “Libraries” item to
open the library search page
3. Type “Adafruit Dotstar” in the
search field and press enter
Using libraries
1.
2.
3.

22. (as an example)
Once you find the correct library
("Adafruit Dotstar”), click to view
the details and examples.
Use the dropdown under
Examples to change it to
“ItsyBitsyM4Onboard”.
Copy the example code (to
memory) and then click the Add
to Project button.
Adding Dotstars

23. to the project
In the popup - select the Hello World
project and click Add
Adding Dotstars

24. What happened?
What happened under the hood is that
this text file was updated.
platformio.ini is the main setup of your
project, so let’s take a look at it?
Adding Dotstars

25. Paste in the “ItsyBitsyM4Onboard” example

26. what’s wrong?
When we build the library, we get an
error telling that Wire.h is missing.
This is a library that is used by the
Adafruit Dotstar library.
This is a bug in the example we’re
using. The library is already on our
machine, but we need to include it.
Can anyone suggest how we fix
this?
Errors?

27. added to the top
In this case, it was one of the
common libraries that were
needed.
wire.h

28. what’s wrong?
The error says that 'rainbow' was
not declared in this scope. But we
do have a method called
“rainbow”, don’t we?
The problem is that this method is
being used BEFORE the compiler
has reached the part of the code
it’s in.
Let’s move our loop-method to
the bottom of the file to solve this.
More errors?

29. Source Control

30. github.com

35. If you don’t have GIT installed on your machine, you’ll see a download button
Click to install GIT

49. https://code.visualstudio.com/shortcuts/keyboard-shortcuts-macos.pdf