New Arduino IDE

I hear that 1.6.2 installs some of the compiler tools "on demand" rather than all at once.  No ARM compiler unless you install ARM boards with the new "board manager", for example.

(and: this apparently causes some problems, especially with 3rd party hardware, since compilers are now in a different place on disk, and might not be there at all.)

WestfW I've also realised that in Windows, it now conforms more to Microsoft standard software installation rules, suggesting installation in ..../Program Files (x86) and also placing a large amount of stuff in .../AppData/Roaming/Arduino15

Neil, that's correct. Not only but I have explored a bit and see that the library manager is based on a JSON file including all the last updated library list organised by category.

The json file is library_index.json and is under the .../Arduino15 folder that is under Windows where you mention, Linux under the Arduino15 ide installation folder and in Mac OSX under /Users/_user_name_/Library/Arduino15 (this last can't be found with finder and should be reached by terminal.

Every library is a json object, very simple to understand in the format like the following:

    {

      "name": "TinyWireM",

      "version": "1.0.0",

      "author": "Adafruit",

      "maintainer": "Adafruit \u003cinfo@adafruit.com\u003e",

      "sentence": "I2C library for Trinket and Gemma, adapted from BroHogan's code on Arduino Playground",

      "paragraph": "I2C library for Trinket and Gemma, adapted from BroHogan's code on Arduino Playground",

      "website": "https://github.com/adafruit/TinyWireM",

      "category": "Signal Input/Output",

      "architectures": [

        "*"

      ],

      "types": [

        "Recommended"

      ],

      "url": "http://arduino.cc/download.php?f=/libraries/TinyWireM-1.0.0.zip",

      "archiveFileName": "TinyWireM-1.0.0.zip",

      "size": 15696,

      "checksum": "SHA-256:6b5ee59e855d8415f9e5062e897c590acbbfeb8e93dbf118d47636c869915386"

    }

Maybe a good idea that the community maintain a version of this file updated with the libraries that are not distributed by the Arduino's friends (e.g. Adafruit & company) but maybe very useful for the developers.

>  Microsoft standard software installation rules

Sigh.  I really hate the way that "Microsoft standard rules" scatter an application all over the disk :-(

I really hate the way that "Microsoft standard rules" scatter an application all over the disk :-(

You and me both !! I borrowed the expression from a posting about 1.6.2 in another forum............not my own words

So far I've not found the new library manager to be of much help. I tried adding a library from zip and although that did create a library (in my user area) it did allow that library to reference other libraries which were in the program files folders. The net result was that it did not compile. I move the library over to the same folder structure as the others and it worked fine.

But you can change somewhere in the settings (maybe in the preferences advanced text file) where the libraries are stored. Not sure if this version search in both places (your custom folder and the standard folder of the application) or if you should move all the libraries somewhere else.

Eagle CAD uses symbolic links which works quite well.

Also under Windows ?

Workshopshed Hi Andy, my experience of installing libraries under Windows 7 is a bit happier:  under the 1.6.1 IDE,  I used the existing facility to install various libraries from their .zip files - they were installed in a folder called libraries, under the My Sketches Folder (which I keep elsewhere, and tell the IDE where to find it!!), not within the default Libraries folder.

I subsequently used the provided uninstall program to remove 1.6.1 before installing 1.6.2. The libraries are still there; 1.6.2 can see them; I can load an example from one of them and it compiles happily.........I'm impressed.

Separation of the downloaded IDE from "your own" stuff - sketches, external libraries etc seems to mark a big improvement.