Serial Ports and Terminal Windows in Visual Studio and Atmel Studio

by Visual Micro 14. September 2013 14:46

The free Visual Micro plugin provides multiple Serial Port Terminals along with "auto-pause for upload" and optional usb "auto detect/re-connect". Serial port "Friendly Names" are optionally provided as part of the Visual Micro + upgrade.

  • Auto-reconnect will detect when the micro-controller has disconnected from the usb. The Ide will automatically reconect when the port becomes available again. This feature can be enabled/disabled in tools options
  • Auto-pause for upload detects when a usb upload to a micro-controller is about to be attempted on a port that is currently open as a terminal window. In this case the terminal will close the port and automatically re-open after the upload completes.
  • Discovery of "friendly" serial port names can be a great help compared to simply seeing COM1 and/or COM2 etc. The friendly name feature is switched on by default and can switched off in the Communications section of Visual Micro "Tools>Options"

An overkill example of many serial terminals and also of many connected devices :)

 

How to select an arduino serial port

by Visual Micro 11. April 2010 14:20

The serial monitor is not included in the initial version of visual micro. Therefore the serial port need only be selected to upload to an arduino board using visual studio. An arduino serial port is select using the tool bar drop down menu as show below. When the project is next opened the addin will reselect the same port.

The serial ports menu is dynamic, the menu will detect changes to the connected serial port list of the computer (even whilst the menu is dropped down). The list is in order of device connection. These features are especially useful for device identification when working with multiple boards and ports

Example 1 from older software version

 

Example 2

 

Uploading will invalidate your arduino warranty, we accept no liablity should any problem arise from using this tool to upload to arduino