Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others)

[Lorandil]

Describe the request

Allow Serial Monitor to be placed in a dedicated window separate from the primary Arduino IDE window.

🙂 It will be possible for the user to control the display location of the Serial Monitor separately from the primary Arduino IDE window according to their needs and preferences.
🙂 This will provide feature parity with the Arduino IDE 1.x Serial Monitor.

Describe the current behavior

Serial Monitor is a view in the bottom panel of the primary Arduino IDE window.

🙁 It is not possible to move Serial Monitor to a separate screen in order to dedicate all space on the primary screen to the Arduino IDE editor.

Arduino IDE version

Original report

2.0.0-beta.4

Last verified with

2.0.1-snapshot-32d904c

Operating system

All

Operating system version

Any

Additional context

The requested "tear off" capability would probably make sense for other windows ("Output" view) too.

Workaround

1. Select File > New Sketch from the Arduino IDE menus.
   A new Arduino IDE window will open.
2. Select Tools > Serial Monitor from the Arduino IDE menus.
   The "Serial Monitor" view will open in the bottom panel of the Arduino IDE window.
3. Hover the mouse pointer over the top border of the bottom panel.
   The mouse pointer will change into a resize icon.
4. Click and drag the border up until it reaches its maximum height.

You can now use that Arduino IDE window solely for Serial Monitor, switching back to the other Arduino IDE window to do sketch editing, compile, upload, etc. operations just as you would do with the Arduino IDE 1.x Serial Monitor.

Additional requests

• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Tear off serial monitor window (and maybe others) #289 (comment)
• Allow Output and Serial Monitor to be docked beside each other. #1799
• Drag Serial monitor window to the left or right side #1268
• Cannot undock Serial Monitor #755
• Serial Monitor does not open in seperate window or connect with boards #2131
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/making-the-serial-console-a-dockable-screen-again/1079586
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/ide-2-0-3-undocking-serial-monitor/1063170
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-ide-usb-serial-terminal-issues/1049458/13
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/how-to-get-all-my-1-18-19-libraries-installed-in-2-0-1/1050248/3
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serialmonitor-74880-baud-rate-in-ide-2-0-1/1046886
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/windows-the-serial-monitor-window-needs-to-pop-out-please/1036538
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/using-v-2-0-serial-monitor-print/1034093
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-2-0-0-macos-unexpected-differences/1033549
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/2-0-keyboard-shortcuts-dont-work/1033105/11
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-ide-2-0-0-available-for-download/1031651/17
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/1
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/3
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/4
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/15
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/changing-ide-fonts/1028827
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-issues-hopefully-fixed-before-release/1026548
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-seperate-window/1022661/1
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-seperate-window/1022661/2
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-seperate-window/1022661/5
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/automatic-build-external-screen-for-serial/1013958
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-with-new-ide/1010684/10
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/ide-2-0-rc5-serial-monitor-problems/978293
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-characteristics-fail/943590
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/how-to-dock-serial-monitor/942477
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/how-to-dock-serial-monitor/942477/12
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/no-support-for-esp32-boards-manager-2-01/940115/5
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/first-impressions-and-comments/930873
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/missing-serial-monitor-and-serial-plotter/924262
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-2-0-has-too-many-problems/1100602
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-2-0-has-too-many-problems/1100602/13
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/missing-baud-rate-dropdown-v2-0-4-ide/1105972
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-2-04-stuck-in-splash-screen/1107587/11
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/16
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/17
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-double-window-problem/1112463
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/18
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/ide-2-1-i-am-not-happy/1142471
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/ide-2-serial-monitor/1146303
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-a-separate-window/1031455/26
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/i-miss-my-separate-serial-monitor-window/1163606
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/cannot-upload-to-ftdi-megas-only/1170683
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/your-reason-for-not-switching-to-the-2-x-ide/1176322
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/your-reason-for-not-switching-to-the-2-x-ide/1176322/23
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-in-separate-window-larger-font-etc/1204423
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/adios-ide-2-0-this-is-goodbye-forever/1031455/46
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/undock-serial-monitor/1237489
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/serial-monitor-not-in-separate-window-now/1299502/4
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/feeback-on-latest-2-x-ide-w-win11/1333594
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/critical-flaws-in-v2-ide/1335245
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/several-bugs-in-ide/1361018/11
• https://www.facebook.com/official.arduino/posts/pfbid02x5KM54Gf7L56Tea79pLYVafrciYAGZrioedDVD6YFKEnJdsiNT3w6S2WinZtrAc9l?comment_id=1395510504579311
• https://www.facebook.com/official.arduino/posts/pfbid02qWaAtdLM6Hz43h7BRiYLg3yAoDz4HXRw28tLpgc4d1rszqG5gjbbumA21cLcS2Vcl?comment_id=996845494967736
• https://twitter.com/DevReliefFred/status/1696610597171773571
• https://twitter.com/PaulStoffregen/status/1658089036685410305

Issue checklist

• I searched for previous requests in the issue tracker
• I verified the feature was still missing when using the latest nightly build
• My request contains all necessary details

[ag88]

a tear off serial monitor is rather useful,

another way though is to delegate it to a dedicated serial monitor app like putty
https://www.putty.org/
good serial monitors with a lot of features take a lot of effort to develop. it may help to find existing solutions that already works well. putty didn't just do serial but has telnet and ssh as well.
a problem though is for a 'serial monitor' that integrates with a graphing tool. that i'd guess could be met with a dedicated tool as well.

[Lorandil]

Thanks for the tip.
The problem with external tools like putty is, that they block the serial port.
The IDE won't be able to upload to the micro controller until the connection is manually closed.
With the integraded serial monitor the IDE can claim and release the port as necessary.

[Xtreemtec]

Started today with 2.0 and this was the first thing i missed.. We run a triple screen setup for programming and our debug is always on a second screen as we normally have a lot of data coming from our processors while programming.
Also that CTRL + ENTER to send is very annoying.. But i will look if there is an issue open for that too.

[ironhal0]

I started with 2.0 today, and this was also the first thing that I missed. Any apps that don't let me tear off individual functions to separate screens are essentially hobbling my 3 monitor setup and I take a big step backward in efficiency. Being able to watch the serial output in its own large window while keeping code open in a separate large window is essential.

[DaveTur]

It would also be very useful to 'Tear off' or 'float' the Debugger area. Being able to tear off the individual debugging windows such as CALL STACK and WATCH would be even better.

[PerryBebbington]

+1 for this, for all the reasons others have already given.

[tomjennings]

I'm a heavy user of serial monitor. 1.8.19, vs 2.0.0 here. My projects are sometimes large with voluminous runtime output during development phase. Example below. "Tear off" or somehow separate window is critically important, especially when I'm field-debugging with a laptop and small screen.

Here's a snapshot of my current project's output. Visualization of time series data is easy with dumb old prints. (The 2.0 serial monitor also suppresses multiple spaces but that is a separate Issue.)

[star297]

+1 one this for me and 'output' needs to be collapsible or optional too, takes up too much space.