Cloud9 IDE

Cloud9 IDE runs on port number 3000 on BeagleBone. The Setting up BeagleBone section covered many ways to connect to BeagleBone and open Cloud9 IDE. After connecting to BeagleBone and opening Cloud9 via any one of these ways, we are ready to explore BeagleBone's default programming IDE.

Cloud9 is a web-based IDE to develop primarily JavaScript and Node.js applications. It also supports many other programming languages including PHP, Java, Python and Ruby. Cloud9 runs on the web which means it works inside a browser. There is no difference if you are using Windows, Linux or MAC OS on your PC or even from your smartphone. If you are using a supported Firefox or Chrome browser on a remote PC/smartphone, you can run Cloud9 and do programming on BeagleBone. Cloud9 allows many developers to code simultaneously on single project through the web. It supports instant deployment to many well-known cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine and OpenShift. It is open source software and maintained by a company called Cloud9 IDE, Inc. You can get the source code here: https://github.com/c9/core:

Cloud9 is made up of multiple child windows inside. In the leftmost windows you can select a project related window among Workspace or Navigate or Commands. The Workspace window has a tree view that expands and collapses project files. You can add new, rename and delete project files from this window. At the bottom, there is a console window to display program output, compilation errors, and console.log() messages. When you run any program, you get output printed in this window. You can add a new JavaScript immediate tab in this window. It is useful to evaluate expressions, execute statements and print variables values. You can also add a bash shell in this window tab. You can run commands directly on BeagleBone from here. At the right, there is a place for toolbars. Debugger and Outline toolbars take place in this area. Expand the debugger toolbar when you want to debug a program line by line. The middle empty part is the code editor area. Here actual code gets written. It has very small pane area at the left side. It shows line numbers and breakpoints, errors, and warning signs corresponding to that line. Cloud9 supports multiple tabs to edit many files simultaneously. It provides code completion features for snippets and identifiers. It has rich debugging features like setting breakpoints and step into/step over. It provides dragging and dropping of files from computer to code area. This way, you can add new ready-made code to your project. There are many customization options available with a menu bar at the uppermost side.

We are going to use Cloud9 for all BoneScript programs. There are some ready-made files with code in the demo directory. But they need some hardware setup. So, we will skip them. The best way to get help is to visit the bone101 page or http://beagleboard.org/Support/BoneScript/.