Introduction: Get Away From the Default IDE! Upgrade to Stino!

By

If you are like me and think the default Arduino IDE is horrid, you need to start using Sublime Text and Stino. Sublime Text is a superb, elegant text editor (download it here: http://www.sublimetext.com/3). Stino is a plugin for Sublime Text that extends it's functionality to Arduino. With Stino, you can compile and upload projects, read and write serial data, and much, much more.

Side note: all screenshots were taken using the amCoder theme for Sublime Text (https://github.com/auiWorks/amCoder).

Step 1: Install Package Control

Once you have Sublime Text installed, the next step is to install Package Control. Package Control is a package manager for Sublime Text.

  1. Go to the website: https://packagecontrol.io/installation
  2. Select your Sublime Text version
  3. Copy the installation command (import ...)
  4. Open Sublime Text
  5. Open the console (ctrl + `)
  6. Paste the command and hit enter
  7. Restart Sublime Text

Step 2: Install Stino

By default, Stino is not in the Package Control package list. You will need to add it.

  1. Open Sublime Text.
  2. Open command palette (Ctrl + Shift + P).
  3. Type 'Package Control: Add Repository' and hit enter.
  4. Paste the following link in the field at the bottom of the screen: https://github.com/gepd/Stino/tree/new-stino
  5. Now Package Control knows about Stino, but you still need to install it. Open the command palette again.
  6. Type 'Package Control: Install Package' and hit enter.
  7. Type 'Stino' and hit enter.
  8. Restart Sublime Text.

Step 3: Enjoy

You should now have a new tab called Arduino after help in the toolbar. From here, you can connect your Arduino, upload to it, and use the serial monitor to debug it.