[WIP] feat: Add a copy button to serial monitor #2718
+58
−1
Conversation
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
If the arduino collects some data that you want to store on your computer, a rather simple way is to write it to the serial monitor and copy it to the clipboard. This commit introduces a button that copies the whole content of the serial monitor to the clipboard to make this rather simple. It is a new component added to the menu, and does not change the behaviour of other compontents.
Adds a test for merging one or more lines to a single string. It is supposed to just concatenate the content of the lines, without doing anything else. This method is used when copying the serial monitor content to the clipboard.
This serves as an addition to the previous commits. It is the result of running `yarn i18n:generate` on the state after adding the copy output button to the serial monitor (see 2df3f46). I hope that this will resolve the current Github action failure.
3 tasks
dankeboy36
approved these changes
May 2, 2025
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I checked the code and verified the behavior with #2093 (comment), and a speed test sketch, it worked for me.
/*
Simple test of Serial.print() speed. How many lines/sec can your
Arduino board print to the serial monitor?
This combination of printing text and numbers is meant to test the
most common way Serial printing is used with Arduino.
On true serial boards, this test measures how much of the bandwidth
of a high baud rate can really be used. Efficiency copying bytes
into the transmit buffer, and the serial transmit interrupt, are
the main factors.
On native USB boards, this test measures how well the USB stack can
utilize the USB bandwidth. USB is fast but complex protocol. This
test tends to measure how well optimized the USB code is. For
12 Mbit/sec (full speed) USB, 36848 is the theoretical maximum
lines/sec. For 480 Mbit/sec (high speed) USB, 1521371 is the
theoretical maximum lines/sec speed. Unlike ordinary serial, your
operating system and its drivers, the type of USB port, whether a
USB hub is used, and CPU load on your computer can affect the speed.
*/
uint32_t count, prior_count;
uint32_t prior_msec;
uint32_t count_per_second;
// Uncomment this for boards where "SerialUSB" needed for native port
//#define Serial SerialUSB
void setup() {
Serial.begin(115200); // edit for highest baud your board can use
while (!Serial)
;
count = 10000000; // starting with 8 digits gives consistent chars/line
prior_count = count;
count_per_second = 0;
prior_msec = millis();
}
void loop() {
Serial.print("count=");
Serial.print(count);
Serial.print(", lines/sec=");
Serial.print(count_per_second);
Serial.print(", compilation timestamp=");
Serial.print(__TIME__);
Serial.print(", elapsed=");
Serial.print(millis());
Serial.println(" ms");
count = count + 1;
uint32_t msec = millis();
if (msec - prior_msec > 1000) {
// when 1 second as elapsed, update the lines/sec count
prior_msec = prior_msec + 1000;
count_per_second = count - prior_count;
prior_count = count;
}
}arduino-ide.2093.mov
Great work! People will love this QoL improvement. I left a few remarks in the code. I propose dropping the [WIP] prefix from the PR title.
Comment on lines
+71
to
+73
| export function linesToMergedStr(lines: Line[]) : string { | ||
| return lines.map((line: Line) => {return line.message}).join(""); | ||
| } |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Suggested change
| export function linesToMergedStr(lines: Line[]) : string { | |
| return lines.map((line: Line) => {return line.message}).join(""); | |
| } | |
| export function linesToMergedStr(lines: Line[]): string { | |
| return lines.map((line: Line) => line.message).join(''); | |
| } | |
A simple stringifyLines or joinLines would be a more appropriate function name, maybe
Comment on lines
+55
to
+62
| export const COPY_OUTPUT = Command.toLocalizedCommand( | ||
| { | ||
| id: 'serial-monitor-copy-output', | ||
| label: 'Copy Output', | ||
| iconClass: codicon('copy'), | ||
| }, | ||
| 'arduino/serial/copyOutput' | ||
| ); |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Suggested change
| export const COPY_OUTPUT = Command.toLocalizedCommand( | |
| { | |
| id: 'serial-monitor-copy-output', | |
| label: 'Copy Output', | |
| iconClass: codicon('copy'), | |
| }, | |
| 'arduino/serial/copyOutput' | |
| ); | |
| export const COPY_OUTPUT = { | |
| id: 'serial-monitor-copy-output', | |
| }; |
Attaching a label and iconClass to this command at this level is unnecessary. A label and iconClass are required for a command if the IDE wants to show it in the Command Palette, but it's not the case here; it will be shown on the toolbar or the Monitor widget. Registering the command with the id, and doing the label and icon classes for the toolbar item is sufficient. See the corresponding proposed change below 👇
Comment on lines
+160
to
+167
| registry.registerItem({ | ||
| id: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | ||
| command: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | ||
| tooltip: nls.localize( | ||
| 'arduino/serial/copyOutput', | ||
| 'Copy Output' | ||
| ), | ||
| }); |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Suggested change
| registry.registerItem({ | |
| id: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | |
| command: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | |
| tooltip: nls.localize( | |
| 'arduino/serial/copyOutput', | |
| 'Copy Output' | |
| ), | |
| }); | |
| registry.registerItem({ | |
| id: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | |
| command: SerialMonitor.Commands.COPY_OUTPUT.id, | |
| icon: codicon('copy'), | |
| tooltip: nls.localize('arduino/serial/copyOutput', 'Copy Output'), | |
| }); |
Comment on lines
+109
to
+113
|
|
||
| copyOutput(): void { | ||
| this.copyOutputEmitter.fire(); | ||
| this.update(); | ||
| } |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Suggested change
| copyOutput(): void { | |
| this.copyOutputEmitter.fire(); | |
| this.update(); | |
| } | |
| copyOutput(): void { | |
| this.copyOutputEmitter.fire(); | |
| } |
It's not needed to update the widget after copying the text; no need to rerender.
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.
This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.
Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.
Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.
Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.
Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.
You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.
Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.
This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.
Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.
Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.
Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.
Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
Motivation
When collecting data with the Arduino, a straight-forward way to retrieve it is to write it to the serial monitor (often in csv format or similar) and store it somewhere.
As addressed in various issues (#1081, #2093, #812), retrieving this data from the serial monitor is hard to impossible currently, as it does not really support copying, nor has the functionality to write the data to a file.
Change description
This pull request introduces a button that copies the content of the serial monitor to the clipboard. It uses the raw data stored in the frontend (an array of strings/lines) and joins it to a single string that is copied. This avoids the issue of formatted text completely (#2093) and makes it easy to copy the full content (#1081, #812).
Other information
In the long run (and in order to fully resolve the issues above), a proper copy mechanism of the current selection should be implemented. But this seems to be hard, some related issue (#105) is almost five years old and still open, although there was some implementation effort.
This pull requests aim is to provide some small quality of life feature. It might be replaced by some farther reaching change in the future, or might even stay as it is useful as a quick action nonetheless.
Feedback needed
I created this pull request because I want to use the feature myself. I do not really understand the code structure and style conventions of this repository (Is there some style guide document? I could not find it), so I need feedback on these aspects.
The code itself is working as I would want to use it, allowing to copy the content of the serial monitor to the clipboard. There is a test for the method that joins the lines, I am not sure if the GUI components require tests.
Reviewer checklist