INTRODUCTION TO THE IDE

If you’re reading this, you’ve successfully built your RaspberrySTEMTM, have connected it to the monitor and have loaded your Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – you’re now ready to get started!

Here is (generally) what this IDE should look like:

The first thing you’ll likely notice is that the screen is split down the middle, with the left side in blue and the right side in white (you’re probably reading this on the right-hand side of the screen right now). The left (blue) side is also split into two pieces.

Below, we’ll discuss each of these three sections of the IDE and how they work.

Code Window

Here is the window you should see in the upper-left portion of the screen:

This is the Code Window and it consists of two parts:

  1. Icon Menu

    The Icon Menu consists of four clickable icons, each of which serves a specific function. Let’s look at the four icons individually:

    This is the “Play” icon. When you click this icon, the code in the Code Area will execute.

    This is the “File” icon. When you click this icon, a list of files will pop up so that you can get back to code you have previously saved. The popup will look like this:

    From this menu you can do three things:

    • To create a new file, click on the “New File” bar

    • To open a previously saved file, click on the file name of the file you’d like to open

    • To change the name or to duplicate an existing file, click on the “Edit” icon to the right of the file you’d like to change

    This is the “Save” icon. When you click this icon, the code in the Code Area will be saved under the current file name. If you’d like to change the name of the file, use the “File” icon mentioned above.

    This is the “Settings” icon. When you click this icon, you will be prompted to change various settings or to shut down the IDE.

    To the right of the Icon Menu is an indication of the file that is currently being edited in the Code Area.

    In this example above, you can see that the file being edited is called, “Unititled.py” This is the default file when you first open the IDE, and the “.py” at the end of the filename denotes that the code stored in the file is written in the programming language Python.

    Note that by clicking the two arrows to the right of the filename, you can expand or collapse this window.

  2. Code Area

    Below the Icon Menu and Filename is the area where you write and edit your code.  We'll be talking a lot more about this area in the next project as we start writing some code.

Output Window

Here is the window you should see in the lower-left portion of the screen:

This is called the Output Window is there is where your program will display information about the program status.  

For example, you may tell your program to print something to this area. Or, if your program has an error, the error would be displayed in this area. This area will also indicate if your program has finished running or you have stopped it.

Projects & Documentation Window

On the right-hand side of the screen, you should see a window that resembles this:

This is the Projects & Documentation Window, and it consists of two parts:

  1. Navigation Menu

  2. The Icon Menu consists of four clickable navigation icons, each of which serves a specific function. Let’s look at the four icons individually:

    Clicking the “Back” arrow will step you back through your viewing history.

    Clicking the “Forward” arrow will step you forward through your viewing history (if you had previously stepped backwards).

    The “Home” icon will take you to the home page list of all the projects (as seen in the example).

    The “API” icon will take you to the list of custom APIs (we'll discuss what that is later) available as part of the RaspberrySTEMTM.

  3. Projects & Documentation

  4. Below the Navigation Menu is the view of the projects and documentation available as part of the RaspberrySTEMTM platform. Any parts of the documentation that are underlined in blue are clickable hyperlinks that will take you to other parts of the documentation or projects.

Now that you have a basic overview of the IDE, it’s time to write and run your first program. We call this Project #1, and like all the RaspberrySTEMTM projects, it’s available in the Projects & Documentation Window.

To start working on Project #1, click the next link below...

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