#MicroPython: Visual Studio Code (VSCode) as IDE

Quoting the official MicroPython's website:

MicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments.

Besides C++ and C, I use MicroPython to program microcontrollers, especially the ESP32/ESP8266 types. These two microcontrollers are compatible with MicroPython and it is easy to integrate sensors and actors programming using this language. I wrote a tutorial about installing MicroPython on the ESPs, as well a lot of articles about these microcontrollers and MicroPython. This is an update to the "Getting started with MicroPython": I am changing from Atom to Visual Studio Code (VSCode), and using the PyMakr extension, it is possible to program and debug MicroPython on VSCode.

Visual Studio Code

The open-source VSCode is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging applications. It is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

“The majority of Google developers are using it now,” Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, said on the Windows Weekly podcast. :)

Fig. 1: Visual Studio Code - Pymakr extension

To use VSCode for MicroPython, you need to install the Pymakr extension (see Fig. 1).

Configuration

You can configure the plugin using Ctrl+Shift+P and search for Pymakr > Global Settings, you get something like this:

{
    "address": "COM9",
    "username": "micro",
    "password": "python",
    "sync_folder": "",
    "open_on_start": true,
    "safe_boot_on_upload": false,
    "sync_file_types": "py,txt,log,json,xml,html,js,css,mpy",
    "ctrl_c_on_connect": false,
    "sync_all_file_types": false,
    "auto_connect": false
}

That is the global configuration. If you want to have a local configuration you need to create a file called pymakr.conf inside the folder of the project with the content from above.

Node.js

The PyMakr requires Node.js. Instructions to install it are available here. For Ubuntu users to install the latest LTS version, you can use the following lines

sudo apt-get install curl python-software-properties
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install nodejs

MicroPython IDE for VSCode

There is also another extension for MicroPython: MicroPython IDE for VSCode. This allows to flash the firmware using the esptool.py, but it works on Linux, but not on Windows (esptool.py is not an executable on Windows).

VSCode PyMakr Error (Update 01.08.2019):

Today, I tried to upload the files to an ESP32 and I got the following error on VSCode:

There was an error with your serialport module, Pymakr will likely not work properly. Please try to install again or report an issue on our github (see developer console for details)

Apparently this is caused by VSCode switching to a newer version of Electron (4.2.5), which requires a different binding for the serialport module in order to work. If you go to VSCode > Help > About, you can see your Electron version as in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2: VSCode About

To solve the problem you need to rebuild the binding. Thus, open a CMD or Terminal and type the following:

npm install -g prebuild-install # use sudo if required
cd ~/.vscode/extensions/    # depeding on your platform this changes (see Note 1)
cd pycom.pymakr-1.1.3  
cd node_modules/@serialport/bindings

prebuild-install --runtime electron --target 4.2.5 --tag-prefix @serialport/bindings@ --verbose --force

# Restart VSCode, then all is working