Arduino for Visual Studio is a small addin for Visual Studio that provides full featured Arduino Development. Developers no longer need to use the Arduino Ide. We can code and upload to any Arduino microprocessor using Visual Studio. (not available in the express versions See This Free Visual Studio 2010 Professional Microsoft Offer)
Arduino for Visual Studio is based on the operational procedures of the Arduino IDE and follows the rules applied by the Processing IDE for Arduino. This allows the user to load a standard Arduino sketch into the Visual Studio environment without having to make changes to the sketch or .PDE files. Arduino 1.0 (and older versions) is fully supported.
Using Visual Studio to program Arduino is the most comprehensive and easy to use build environment is designed for users who already understand how to use the Arduino IDE. Download Arduino for Visual Studio
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Information
The new version is a complete rewrite offering at least the same functionality offered by the Arduino development tool. The final work is to ensure that we support the soon to be released Arduino 1.0 which includes support for the new Arduino (.ino) file extensions.
You can use standard visual studio commands such as F5 build and upload, double click “go to” error. We can burn new Arduino boot loaders from Visual Studio and optionally use programmers to upload.
Support for Visual Studio solutions containing single or multiple sketches is included as standard. There is also a new api allowing arduino plug-ins to be created for other development systems.
After installation you will see two new tools bars. A "Serial Ports" tool bar and an "Arduino Boards" tool bar. These bars are permanent until you uninstall the add-in. This means that you can show/hide them as required and that you can also Customise the "width" of the Arduino boards list. Try setting its width to 300px (or less) which is the length of the longest arduino board description. The same commands are duplicated on the "Tools>Arduino" menu should you decide not to use the bars.
Most Arduino options are repeated within the Visual Studio menus and tool bars in the same way that standard Visual Studio commands are repeated. For example the "Build" option is on the Visual Studio "Project" menu and on the "Build" tool bar. The "Add New Arduino Code" is on the Project menu and on the "Add New" button of the "Standard" Visual Studio tool bar.
The Tools>Arduino menu contains options that are always available inside Visual Studio such as Burn Bootloader. The "File>Open>Arduino Project" is also always available. Many other options become available when an Arduino project is active.
Examples
1. Visual Studio with 2 sketch projects and a windows project
Build Solution when Arduino is the Start Up project
2 - Two serial windows
3 - Upload automatic pause of Serial tool
4 - Add an arduino Library using the project menu
Target Audience
Visual Studio professionals who already know how to use the Arduino IDE
Major Changes
In the 2011 version the compile and upload are now implemented using identical methods to the Arduino development system. This means that resulting Arduino programs are identical to the programs produced by the Arduino IDE. This also means that errors encountered during compile will match the errors emitted by the Arduino development system.
When an Arduino library is added to an Visual Studio sketch project the intellisense will not refresh until you click "Save" on the main sketch .pde
By default, _Core and _Lib files are not shown in projects allowing the Visual Studio "Find & Replace" to be used within an Arduino project (be carefull!). The Visual Studio "Project" menu contains a new command called "Show All Arduino Files". When selected the _Core and _Libs folders will appear containing all additional Arduino files. New users should NOT use this option.
You will find "New Arduino project" on the Visual Studio "File" menu, "Standard" tool bar and "Solution" menu (right click solution in solution explorer). Using these commands ensures sketches are created under the Arduino sketch folder.
The compiler remembers files found in core, libs and sketch folders and uses the information to reduce the amount of compilation work. On average this can reduce compilation times by 400%. The resulting compilation will always be identical to that provided by the Arduino Development tool. You can disabled this feature in the Visual Studio>Tools>Options>Visual Micro>Compiler settings
We recommend showing the Visual Studio "Build" tool bar for single click Arduino compile
After installation, if you can not see the arduino board or serial tool bars or have duplicate menu or bar items then please follow this guide
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