The latest version of the Adafruit webIDE now supports the BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black.  We’ve been working out many of the issues with this installer the last few days, and it appears ready to be released into the wild.  The installer is specifically designed to work with the default Angstrom Linux distribution that is pre-installed on the BeagleBone’s.  You may want to update to the latest version of Angstrom prior to installing the webIDE as well.

You can find the instructions on how to install it in the Adafruit Learning System’s webIDE tutorial.  We’ve also created a new installation video to help as well:

If you run into any issues with installing the webIDE on the BeagleBone, or with any issues running the webIDE, please open a ticket in the issues section of our GitHub repository.

We have a new alpha release of the Rapsberry Pi WebIDE ready to go.  This latest version features a few major features requested by users of the WebIDE.

We now have a new offline mode that you can enable with an –offline flag when you install the WebIDE.  This mode allows you to bypass using Bitbucket or Github, and should work when not connected to the internet.

We also have a new experimental GitHub mode that allows you to sign in with your GitHub account.  This feature is for advanced users that want to use GitHub as their provider.  This can be enabled with the –github flag during installation.  Please note that GitHub mode does not do some of the automated things (git ssh key setup, etc) that the default installation mode will do.

You can now refresh the left navigator from within the WebIDE, as well as manually update any repositories you have by right-clicking on them, and choosing the option to “Update Repository”.

The full list of new changes for the 0.3.7 version of the WebIDE are as follows:

• Github support.
  • Ability to enable with –github as the default
  • Advanced setting.
  • Requires manual ssh key setup as of yet.
  • Most commands are treated as manual mode for now (manual commits, etc).
• New Offline mode
  • Ability to install with –offline as the default
  • need to manually commit, and push changes (similar to the manual git setting)
  • Bypasses bitbucket OAuth
• Ability to refresh directories from within the navigator
• New option to clone repositories without updating remote to bitbucket
• New right-click context menu option to update repositories from remote (origin/master for now)
• New Report Bug Link added to footer
• New confirmation dialog for navigating away from unsaved changes…Save Files/Don’t Save/Cancel
• Editor is set to readOnly for any files that shouldn’t change (README, update notes), including empty editor window while navigating.
• Deleting a file or project will now also delete a corresponding scheduled job from the queue.
• Errors cloning repositories are sent to the front-end now.
• Error handling for most git commands now. Notifications visible in webide for failures.
• New Error pages for any issues with the system failing to show pages. Links to ALS WebIDE FAQ for help.
• New Error page specifically for OAuth failures. Adds a button to execute a script to help set the date and time.
• Attempt to set the date on the Pi during installation to prevent OAuth errors.
• Creating files and folders will automatically open them in the editor and navigator.
• Uploaded files will always use the current working directory, instead of uploading to the parent directory now.
• git pull commands are now using the quiet (-q) flag.
• Editor setting for supporting adding a Make link in the editor action bar if a Makefile is detected in the cwd. Not enabled by default.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

You can upgrade from 0.2.0 and higher from within the editor.  If you’d like the increased speed using the new node binaries, you’ll want to uninstall/install again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
   1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

Adam Wishneusky shared his quick Raspberry Pi clock project using a whole bunch of Adafruit gear.

Used in this project is the Raspberry Pi Starter Pack, Miniature WiFi Module, 4-Digit 7-Segment Display w/I2C Backpack, and of course the awesome Raspberry Pi WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

We have a new alpha release of the Rapsberry Pi WebIDE ready to go.  This latest version includes a few bug fixes as well as some new settings that allow you to customize the editor.  The biggest new setting is one that allows you to manually git commit and push to Bitbucket when you’re ready.  You can also add a comment when doing so, to make it easier to track your changes.

The new changes for the 0.3.3 version of the WebIDE are as follows:

• Add four new settings to the Settings Page
  • Use Soft Tabs (on or off)
  • Tab Size (2, 4, 6, or 8)
  • Show Invisibles (on or off) (shows whitespaces, tabs and spaces, etc)
  • Manual Git Commits and Pushes
• Add ability to manually commit and push file changes. This includes adding comments.
  • Do a git status on the file to check if it is in need of a commit and push, and populate editor bar.
• Set editor defaults to use soft tabs with a setting of 4 tab size, and show invisibles off
• Add a default .gitignore file to reduce chance of .pyc files getting pushed out to bitbucket.
• Fix for the terminal getting out of sync with the editor
• Prevent overwriting of Adafruit project files
• Update manual installation instructions
• Install node.js as part of installation again.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

You can upgrade from 0.2.0 and higher from within the editor.  If you’d like the increased speed using the new node binaries, you’ll want to uninstall/install again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
   1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

This is my fourth video in a new series that will cover every aspect of the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi WebIDE. If you didn’t catch the first video in the series, click here to learn how to install the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, then be sure to watch the second video which will give you a good overview of the basic features of the WebIDE. The third video covers the amazing visualizer tool.  Be the first to know when the next video is released by subscribing to the Adafruit Youtube channel.

If you want to learn more about the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, head on over to the Adafruit Learning System. We can’t wait to see the great projects you create with your Raspberry Pi and the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

This is my third video in a new series that will cover every aspect of the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi WebIDE. If you didn’t catch the first video in the series, click here to learn how to install the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, then be sure to watch the second video which will give you a good overview of the basic features of the WebIDE. Be the first to know when the next video is released by subscribing to the Adafruit Youtube channel.

If you want to learn more about the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, head on over to the Adafruit Learning System. We can’t wait to see the great projects you create with your Raspberry Pi and the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

This is my second video in a new series that will cover every aspect of the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi WebIDE. If you didn’t catch the first video in the series, click here to learn how to install the Raspberry Pi WebIDE. This second video will give you a thorough run-through of the main features of the WebIDE, and how to get started coding. Be the first to know when the next video is released by subscribing to the Adafruit Youtube channel.

If you want to learn more about the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, head on over to the Adafruit Learning System. We can’t wait to see the great projects you create with your Raspberry Pi and the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

We have a new alpha release of the Rapsberry Pi WebIDE ready to go.  This latest version is primarily bug fixes, but it does have one new feature!  We’ve added the ability to create folders at all levels of your project to help with organization of those more complex projects.

The new changes for the 0.3.2 version of the WebIDE are as follows:

• Navigator: Add ability to create folders at all levels.
• Debugger: Fix display of local vs global variables.
• Terminal: Set terminal width based on containing parent, use entire width and height.
• Terminal: Resize browser window resizes terminal appropriately.
• Remove file creation and uploads in Adafruit repository (it would fail anyways) project

Also, 0.3.1 had been previously released with a single fix as follows:

• Fix for debugger hanging when stderr is written from script being debug.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

You can upgrade from 0.2.0 and higher from within the editor.  If you’d like the increased speed using the new node binaries, you’ll want to uninstall/install again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
   1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

Debugging with the Raspberry Pi WebIDE

The Raspberry Pi WebIDE includes an advanced, yet easy to use tool, to help you work through code that you’ve downloaded or written in Python.

If you haven’t used a debugger, either on the command line or in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), hopefully this guide will help you understand why you’d want to do so, and how to effectively debug your code.

Learn more!

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

This is my first video in a new series that will cover every aspect of the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi WebIDE.  The WebIDE is still in the early development phase, but we are rapidly packing in great new features, and squashing bugs.  Even though it is still in Alpha, this first video shows you how incredibly easy it is to install the WebIDE onto your Raspberry Pi.  The goal is to release a new video each Friday to cover a new feature of the WebIDE.

If you want to learn more about the Raspberry Pi WebIDE, head on over to the Adafruit Learning System.  We can’t wait to see the great projects you create with your Raspberry Pi and the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

We have a new alpha release of the Rapsberry Pi WebIDE ready to go.  This version includes a major new feature that allows you to debug your python programs.  This is a real-time step debugger, with breakpoints, output, etc.

We also have a new feature on how to use the debugger on the Learning system.

The new changes for the 0.3.0 version of the WebIDE are as follows:

• Python step debugger
• Node.js update to 0.8 from 0.6 for faster navigation, and page loads.
• Package node binaries with the WebIDE for faster, and easier installs

Here’s a screenshot of the debugger in action:

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

You can upgrade from 0.2.0 and higher from within the editor.  If you’d like the increased speed using the new node binaries, you’ll want to uninstall/install again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
   1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

We have a new alpha release of the Rapsberry Pi WebIDE ready to go.  This version includes a major new feature that allows you to “Visualize” the execution of your Python programs.  I’ll explain how this works in a moment, but first, here is the entirety of the changelog 0.2.4:

• New visualization feature for Python
• Added ability to change font sizes in the editor and the terminal
• New settings manager added, currently only has font size, but more can be added
• Fix for long file names causing strange wrapping

The font size change was requested by a user of the WebIDE, and it’s a great idea.  So far, the font settings change the editor, and terminal text sizes.  You can access this setting by clicking your username in the upper left of the navigator, once you’re logged into the WebIDE.  Along with this feature, we’ve added the framework for a settings section within the editor, which we’ll start expanding with more settings.  This would be a good place for enabling some of the more advanced feature requests we’ve had.

Ok, now back to the visualizer…

When you open a python program in the editor there is a new button titled “Visualize” that is now enabled.  Clicking this button will execute your program, and open a new section of the IDE that allows you to step through your program.  You’ll be able to see how your program is interpreted..variables being created, functions called, etc.  It’s not a real-time debugger, but it’s likely much more useful to teaching new programmers.  It really helps you understand what is happening when you click “Run”, and see your program output.  That being said, it can also help you debug, as it does show you variables, and you can step through each section of your code.  All of this was possible by the open source library from pythontutor.com.

The way it works is that when you click visualize, a websocket message is sent to your Pi with the file name and relative path.  Then a node.js child process is launched that executes the python tutor program with your script passed in as an argument.  The master python program then opens your script as a file, and passes it in as a string to the class that will then use Python’s bdb debugger to pull out all of the useful details of the execution trace.  It gathers this data, converts it to a JSON representation, and then sends it back to the WebIDE front-end.  The front-end parses the JSON, and launches the ExecutionVisualizer method that knows how to display it each step of the way.  The Frame and Object stacks are html tables, but using jsplumb, and d3 to draw the arrows and lines connecting everything together.

We’re hoping we can expand this in the future, such as getting it to work with relative imports, possibly adding breakpoints, or any other features that are requested that would be useful.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
   1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

Now that Friday is upon us, it seemed like a good time to release a few more updates to the WebIDE for the weekend!  This 0.2.2 release contains primarily bug fixes, and a few new features with new installs.

Here is the entirety of the changelog:

• Fix for false redirects to /setup even if bitbucket and git is already configured.
• Change page title based on what directory or file is open.
• Update Ace to the latest version, fixing line numbering
• Detect if port 80 is in use during install, and try 3000 instead.
• Set path to open editor at end of install script to actual hostname.
• Install python-smbus as part of the installation process.
• Add symlink for repositories to webide users home path.
• Fix for closing the schedule manager breaking the editor toolbar.
• Set default as using hard tabs for editing files for now.

Thank you to everyone that has submitted issues in our issue tracker. It helps immensely to track down bugs, and just make the editor better for everyone.

Upgrading from 0.2.0 and higher

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

We’ve released another version of the WebIDE to the world.  If you’re already running 0.2.0, it should appear as an update.

This release has a couple of major new features.  The first one is a change to the workflow of the editor.  In previous releases, when you would click ‘Run’, the terminal would pop up as an overlay over your code.  You would see the results, and then close the terminal to make more changes.  This would continue on until your mouse button broke.

The new workflow is the following.  You open your file, make a change, and then click ‘Run’.  The terminal slides up from the bottom, and is displayed inline with your code, instead of as an overlay.  The focus remains on the editor, so you can easily make another change, and hit run again.  Another new feature to the workflow, is that when the editor is focused, you can type “Ctrl-Enter”, or “Command-Enter” (OS X), and it will execute your code.

This should make for a more enjoyable, and faster experience.  There will likely be bugs, and edge cases, but if you report them, we’ll fix them as soon as possible.

Another major feature to the editor is an implementation of a scheduler.  Before I go into too many details, I’ll explain a scenario that you may want to use it.  Rather than running a script in a loop, consuming valuable resources, you could have it run, and then exit.  Then, you would schedule it to run however often you would like, down to the minute.  Let’s say you would like to monitor the humidity using your Pi over an indeterminate time period, at a rate of ‘every 10 minutes’.  You could follow that tutorial, and modify the python script to remove the ‘while(True):’ loop (and the time.sleep), and just let the scheduler run it instead.

The scheduler is using an open source module to parse text of time ranges (and execute jobs!), similar to how you would think in terms of cron.  We’ve included some examples to work from, and will add more over time.  For example, you could write “after 1 hour”, and that would continuously run on the hour.  Or, you could write “on tuesday at 11:00 am”, and your script would run at that time each week.  It’s pretty flexible, but there are a few gotchas at this point (for example, “every 1 hour” doesn’t work right yet, but “every 1 hour on the first minute” does work).  Your scheduled jobs are persisted in redis, and are re-initialized when you restart your Raspberry Pi, or the server.

We’ve also fixed a few more issues along the way, and you can now permanently set a port other than 80 either in the /config page, or by using the redis console manually.

Our goal is to keep the editor as clean and simple to use as possible, primarily with the Python language at this point.  Most of our new features will likely focus in that direction as we have limited resources.  If you do think we’re missing something critical to developing with python on the Pi, or something is bugging you, please let us know.  Thank you all again for your feedback!

Also, follow this link to the GitHub repository for the project.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

We’ve released a new update to the WebIDE! If you’re already running 0.2.0, you can just update next time you sign in. If you’re on 0.1.9 or lower, please follow the instructions at the bottom of the post to get up and running on the latest version.  If you’re not familiar with the WebIDE yet, we have some more details at the learning system.

The two biggest features are that the terminal is now inline with the editor so that it doesn’t disrupt your editing. It makes for much faster code changes. We’ve also added in a simple job scheduler so you could run a script “every 15 minutes”, or “after 5 hours”.  It’s pretty neat, surely has some bugs to be discovered, and should be interesting to see how it gets used!

Here is the entirety of the changelog:

• Job scheduler for automating script execution. Run a script “every 15 minutes”, for example.
• Schedule manager for toggling jobs, and deleting jobs.
• Move terminal inline with the editor for faster run/code workflow.
• Focus editor when running code.
• Notifications while running scripts in editor bar.
• Focus the editor in many more situations, for example, when opening a file, it will give focus to the editor.
• Add “Command-Enter”, or “Ctrl-Enter” command to run scripts, this is in addition to “Command-S” and “Ctrl-S” to save when editor is focused.
• Update Bitbucket logos with new design.
• Add option to change port number in /config, and persist in Redis, surviving updates.
• Ensure only one instance of restartd is running during installation
• Add ALS Guide: tag to the initial Readme
• Message System for various notifications
• Explicitly set is_private when creating repositories

Thank you to everyone that has submitted issues in our issue tracker. It helps immensely to track down bugs, and just make the editor better for everyone.

Upgrading from 0.2.0

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Login to the editor.
3. Click Update in the upper right.
4. Update should take about a minute.

Upgrading From 0.1.9 and lower

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
5. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

Bitbucket kicked off their new blog series, ‘Who’s On Bitbucket?’, with the Adafruit Learning System Raspberry Pi WebIDE!

Adafruit, the NYC based open-source hardware company led by Ladyada, recently released their open-source Raspberry Pi WebIDE alpha. Striving to be the easiest way to develop code on your Raspberry Pi, the WebIDE has many features to help program your device. Find your repositories neatly listed within the IDE and quickly access your source code, or talk directly to your Raspberry Pi with the built-in Terminal button. Learn more about using the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

We’ve recently released a pretty big update to the Raspberry Pi WebIDE so I figured I’d take a moment to discuss some of the decisions we’ve made, and a few of the things we’re working on.

The biggest upgrade from 0.1.9 to 0.2.0 is a new installation process.  This should fix many of the outstanding bugs that have been reported, and the installation should take significantly less time than the previous version to complete.

• The first thing is that the new installer is using a new user, so that it isn’t tied to your existing user.  One of the features we had to have working is access to GPIO and I2C.  As I previously wrote about, we currently need root access to easily access the GPIO pins.  For the time being, we’ve given the ‘webide’ user access to sudo, and the same permissions as the default ‘pi’ user.  We’d like to slowly remove the requirement for root access, but that will take some time.  You can manually disable these features, if you don’t need access to the GPIO pins.
• The next feature is that the editor uses about 10-20mb less memory.  We switched from having a node process monitoring the server (in the case of crashes, or updates), to a lighter weight process monitor, restartd.  It’s not as feature-packed as some of the other process monitors (monit, supervisors, etc), but it’s pretty simple to get working, and seems stable enough.
• Also, you can drop off the port :3000 on your URL’s when accessing the editor.  We’ve used ‘setcap’ to give access to the node process to port 80 without running the node process as root.
• Those are mostly behind the scenes features, but one that we’ve added in for users with multiple Pi’s is being able to change the hostname of the pi from within the editor.  It’s an early test of the feature, and can be accessed at /config.  This would be useful in a classroom situation, making it easy for teachers to name their pi’s differently so there aren’t any conflicts.  It’s also useful for that situation when you have multiple Pi’s autonomously monitoring your surroundings, slowly taking control of your house until you come home one day and you’ve been locked out for good.

Some of the features I’d like to work on in the future:

• Make the editor updating features more fault tolerant.  Right now it’s fairly simple, and you’re not easily able to back out to a previous version.  I don’t think we’ll ever need to push out a lot of updates, but if an update failed, it would be nice not to have to uninstall and re-install the editor.
• A job queue of sorts would be an interesting idea to implement that I’m sure folks would find useful.  The goal would be to basically abstract cron so that you can easily manage scheduled jobs.  For example, let’s say you’d like to check the temperature every 10 minutes, and update a google spreadsheet with that data.  You could navigate to your script in the editor, click “Create Job”, choose your parameters, and save.  At that point, your script would run until you tell it to stop, even when you’re not using the editor.  The key to this feature is keeping it simple enough for everyone to use.
• Making the editing itself even better.  There are a lot of things we can do here, from adding key bindings for power users, to tabbed editing, and just quickly fixing the issues folks are submitting in github.

Learn how to install the WebIDE on your Raspberry Pi here.

The Adafruit Learning Technologies team develops tools and resources to help people learn.  In an effort to be as open as possible and to keep our awesome community involved, we decided to do a periodical Developer Journal.  In our Developer Journal posts, we will share with you the current Adafruit Learning Technologies projects in development, upcoming new features, and the status of existing projects.  Check out our current projects, the Adafruit Learning System, and the WebIDE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

Want a FREE RASPBERRY PI? All orders over $350 get a FREE Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM!

We’ve updated the WebIDE to 0.2.0. This is a fairly large release with most features being changed behind the scenes. The biggest change is a more robust, and faster installer. It can still take 3-4 minutes, but that’s down from 10-15!

The core of the editor has changed, so there won’t be a direct update for this from the previous alpha release. You’ll want to follow the instructions at the end of this post to get the latest version.

Here are some of the highlights of this release:

• New installer to resolve the majority of the issues in our first Alpha that folks ran into.
• Reduce memory consumption by 10-20mb.
• Run on port 80 instead of 3000.  You can now simply type in “http://raspberrpypi.local”.
• Experimental /config page to change your hostname and wifi ssid and password (wifi only on Occidentalis thus far).
• Notification of activity while creating files and folders.  Now you know it’s working!
• No longer tied to ‘pi’ user, creates a new ‘webide’ user as part of the installation.
• Various bug fixes.

The full set of release notes are located in our repository.

Upgrading

To install this new editor, you’ll want to completely remove your old editor, and run the installation script again.

1. Ensure that your code is safely saved in your repository at bitbucket.org.
2. Uninstall using the following script
1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/release/scripts/uninstall.sh | sh
3. Either make sure there are no rogue node processes running, or restart your Pi.
4. Install the new and improved WebIDE
1. curl https://raw.github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh

If you’re curious as to what the installatin process is doing, you can easily review the script in our repository.

Please note:  In order to easily access GPIO pins, the new ‘webide’ user has the same permissions as the default ‘pi’ user (sudo).  If possible, a future release will remove sudo access as we improve the editor.

Issues?

Please file any issues you run into, and we’ll do our best to fix them quickly.

We’d like to thank all of the Alpha testers for trying out, and submitting feedback for the WebIDE.  The feedback has helped us fix bugs, and tweak the editor to work for more people.

We’re working on a new installer that should improve things quite a bit.  Some of the new features:

1. Installs in 3-4 minutes vs 10-15 minutes.
2. Reduce memory consumption by half.  We switched from a node process to monitor the status of the server to a simple debian process monitor (restartd).
3. Larger initial download, smaller overall download.  The majority of the dependencies are now included, so the initial download is larger, but should make for a smaller overall download.
4. New ‘webide’ user.  We’ve created a new user and group so that the IDE can be installed by more people, in more configurations.

We’re hoping to get the new installer out in a week or two.  Some of the things we’re trying to finish up are adding GPIO access to the new user without dropping into root access.  In Raspbian Wheezy and Occidentalis, the ‘pi’ user has sudo access without using a password, and we’d like to avoid that, but there doesn’t seem to be a great solution to this that I’ve found thus far.  Please offer suggestions, if you know of a way to do this.  It looks like karl101 made some good progress, but still has some open questions.

Also, feel free to offer feedback for any features you’d like, or any suggestions you have to make the editor easier and faster to use.  You can add feedback to our github issues page.  We have already got a nice constant stream of good feedback that has helped us improve the WebIDE, so keep up the good work.

Learn how to install the WebIDE on your Raspberry Pi here.

The Adafruit Learning Technologies team develops tools and resources to help people learn.  In an effort to be as open as possible and to keep our awesome community involved, we decided to do a periodical Developer Journal.  In our Developer Journal posts, we will share with you the current Adafruit Learning Technologies projects in development, upcoming new features, and the status of existing projects.  Check out our current projects, the Adafruit Learning System, and the WebIDE.