Tutorial: Installing the Particle Workbench developer preview

[will]

If you have not already done so, download Visual Studio Code for Mac, Windows, or Linux. We recommend the Stable build. If you already have Visual Studio Code install you can add the Particle Workbench to your existing install.

Check your email to download the Particle extensions and extract the files from the zip file:

• particle-vscode-theme-1.0.0-alpha.7.vsix
• particle-vscode-snippets-1.0.0-alpha.7.vsix
• particle-vscode-core-1.0.0-alpha.7.vsix

Then install:

• From the View menu, select Extensions.
• From the … menu select Install from VISX.
• Repeat for each of theme, snippets, the core last.

The core installation will take a few minutes. There’s an indicator at the top of the extensions panel that shows the install is still in progress. When complete, you’ll be prompted to reload. Click the Reload Now button.

After reload, some more components will be installed and you will be prompted to install the Particle Local Compiler. This is recommended.

That’s it!

[nrobinson2000]

Particle Workbench is awesome!

Particle finally made a solution for what I was trying to solve with po-util for years.

[GasGen]

Just now installing it. Super excited to try it.

Cheers

[peekay123]

Note that for now, only toolchains for the released DeviceOS (not RC) are available for installation (eg. 0.7.0).

[nrobinson2000]

I guess po-util still has the upper hand (for now).

[drohm]

Looking forward to trying this!

[darrenji]

This is cool. Now that I’ve installed it, is there a Getting Started for how to configure/use it? For example, I can open an existing Particle project, but what debugger/board-type etc do I use? Not seeing anything specific to Particle/Electron in the lists.

[marshall]

I already use vs-code and have batch files to use the particle-cli for online compilation using the selected Device-OS of my choosing.

How do I compile and debug locally? the extensions all installed and the toolchain loaded, but I can’t figure out where to use it from. there is nothing in the launch.json file for compilation and debug.

I think that we need a few how-to’s …

[peekay123]

Tutorials are coming!

[ScruffR]

@marshall

How do I compile and debug locally? the extensions all installed and the toolchain loaded, but I can’t figure out where to use it from. there is nothing in the launch.json file for compilation and debug.

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B should bring up the Build commands.

[marshall]

I already had a tasks.json in my project, so the new extension didn’t overwrite it. which in turn meant that nothing was happening.

I tried it out on a different project that doesn’t have the tasks.json file in the project and I have the build menu appearing now.

I think that this is going to be great, when it’s all working - still a bit of playing for me to get it going.

c:\path\main.h:32:21: error: ‘Serial5’ was not declared in this scope

[sai_y]

Do I need to download the source files of the libraries and include them? (as opposed to Particle Dev’s properties)

[seulater]

So whats the best link, thread to be watching to get all the latest updates on this?

When it was installing I noticed ver 0.7.0 was being downloaded. Are we forced to use 0.7.0? I can't use that version as it causes my application problems. I still use 0.6.3.

After installation I opened a folder to a project but have no clue what to do next.
Tried the

@ScruffR

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B should bring up the Build commands.

But that brings this up which IMHO means nothing to me.

[nrobinson2000]

I’ve installed Workbench and I’m looking under the hood of it now.

Everything is kept in ~/.particle and it is very well organized. (Like po-util but done professionally.)

I’ll definitely see if I can make some scripts to build upon Workbench.

[jimwhitfield]

Nice! So, with a little help from Particle folks, I learned that the next step after installing was to use the MSCode Command Palette (Ctrl-Shift P) to invoke, “particle: create new project”

Once I brought in some code that runs on the Photon, I used the Build menu to kick off a build. It builds. Rah.

This will be great particularly when I break the network stack and the web IDE isn’t available for an update (…without device reset).

Looking forward to more walkthroughs from you

[ScruffR]

@sai_y

Do I need to download the source files of the libraries and include them? (as opposed to Particle Dev’s properties)

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P

Particle: Install Library will have to do both. For cloud build it will use the project.properties dependencies but for local build it needs a local copy of the sources.

[ScruffR]

@marshall

c:\path\main.h:32:21: error: ‘Serial5’ was not declared in this scope

You have set the platform as Electron?

Check for "particle.targetPlatform": "electron" in yourProject.code-workspace

Have you added the required include statement as noted in the reference docs?

Serial5: This channel is optionally available via the Electron's C1(TX) and C0(RX) pins. To use Serial5, add #include "Serial5/Serial5.h" near the top of your app's main code file.

[ScruffR]

@seulater

When it was installing I noticed ver 0.7.0 was being downloaded. Are we forced to use 0.7.0? I can’t use that version as it causes my application problems. I still use 0.6.3.

Switching versions is easy (although it may become even easier in future)
Open yourProject.code-workspace and change "particle.firmwareVersion": "0.7.0" to "particle.firmwareVersion": "0.6.3" and save.
This should download the required sources and set you up for local compiling of all modules too.

This is what I get with Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B

But of course the keyboard shortcut needs to be set correctly

Which should be done by the VSIX (requires reload).

[JumpMaster]

Are the release candidates of 0.8.0 supported? I’ve tried a few permutations of 0.8.0-rc.11 but says it’s invalid.