Hello all,

Over the last few months I have been adding new functionality to ESPlorer to make it work better with MicroPython boards.

I was inspired by a friend to look into fixing and extending the MicroPython functions offered in ESPlorer. The main reason for doing so is that for new learners a GUI may be simpler to use than remembering the different text based syntaxes and idioms, and that I frequently found myself switching between 2 or 3 tools to accomplish simple tasks. Personally I prefer to have the choice between a text based and a GUI based IDE , so I can pick what works best for me, for a specific project.

I have made the following additions and fixes to improve uPython support:

• some fixes to included python scripts
• improve micropython hexdump function to deal with large files

• Add MicroPython Folder Browse and Navigation Support
• Added file icons for Python (looks much better now)
• Fixed the Run button
• Added a 'Ctrl-C' button to allow interruption of a running script
• Improve FileSave and awareness of editor Script / Snippet context
• Add Single File upload to MicroPython
• Tweaked button and menu item enablement based on Open State

• ESP Firmware detection improvements (not perfect yet on ESP32)
• Add support for generic uPython, by using machine module in addition to pyb
• Updates to Options UI and Preferences
• Read GPIO input / output (uPython pyb and generic)
  • the GPIO buttons use the machine module or the pyb module according to preferences.
• Update sample snippets to machine module
• Unified File-Managers between LUA and uPython to single file manager
  • Fix list files in uPython
  • Add PopUp Menu to uPython files (*.py, *.pyc)
    • View file - View in Terminal
    • Hexdump file - View in Terminal
    • Remove file
    • Rename File
• Fix line number alignment in Script and Snippet editor
• Script Editor:
  • Save file to uPython (uses Hexlify to transfer contents with need for escaping)
  • Send file to uPython ( Executes script interactivly)
  • Run File
  • AutoRun on Save
  • Send Selected Block from editor to ESP
• Snippet Editor:
  • Add Snippet names to buttons to simplify use
  • Add Popup menu to the snippet editor:
    • Send Line
    • Send Selected Block

There are more things that I want to do (as always), the main priorities after this are:

• Add Download/Edit of files
• Add tab completion
• fix upload of large binary files
• Integrate this into main branch (may need to be be quite a large PR)
• connect via webrepl (but this will require a lot of refactoring of the existing code)

- Testing currently has been limited to :
    ○ Windows 10 + ESP32 running Loboris MicroPython 1.9.3
    ○ Windows 7 + ESP32 running Loboris MicroPython 1.9.3
    ○ Windows 10 + ESP8622 running MicroPython 1.9.1 / 1.9.3
    ○ Windows 10 + ESP32 running MicroPython 1.9.3

Could you please give this a try on other platforms and other micropython boards or firmware versions, and report both successes and failures ?