Setting up Visual Studio and Visual Micro for Coding the Arduino.

In this post I will explain out how to setup, Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition and Visual Micro, the plug-in that allows users to code INO files like a Professional.

The Visual Micro plugin allows for greater control over your sketches.  

This is from the main page, 
"IDE features such as:- see/edit library sources, jump to code definition, jump to compiler error, class explorer, intellisense, remembers board and Arduino version per project, code completion and a super fast compiler make learning and programming Arduino faster and easier."

First, we need to download VS 2015 Community, you can get it here:
https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx
Be sure to choose the left most option button.

Now for Setup of VS 2015 Community, This is an Important note from the Visual Micro Site:
Visual Micro requires C++ to be installed as a Visual Studio language. If you did not activate C++ when you installed Visual Studio, click "Download" and follow the instructions on that page to add C++ to your Visual Studio installation.

 All three of the C++ options need to be checked off for the Visual Micro plugin to work correctly!  
During this is install, it will take a while, you can download the plugin, from here:
http://www.visualmicro.com/page/Arduino-Visual-Studio-Downloads.aspx
The default options for the install should be fine.

Once you have that installed you are ready to setup VS 2015.
The first thing I did was Turn Off Tutorial mode, if you leave it on, and sometimes you might want to, it creates 'Breakpoints' in your sketch.  All you need to do is 'un-check' it under the Visual Micro menu option.

Next you will want to make sure you have the 'Micro' tool-bars loaded, they look like this:

If you don't have this you'll need to 'Right-Click' some place on the existing Menu bar and make sure all 4 of the 'Micro' ones are 'Checked':

Now on to opening a new sketch, When you either select the menu option FILE>NEW>ARDUINO PROJECT or Click on the NEW button then the TEMPLATES>VISUAL C++>VISUAL MICRO, you will presented with this screen:

This allows for 2 options, one is a Blank Sketch and the other is a Blink sketch.  I choose a Blink sketch for this Demo.  On the Right hand side of VS 2015 you should see something similar to this:

If Solution Explorer isn't selected you will need to click on the tab at the bottom to select it.  Then select the Blink.ino file, it should now display in the main window.  At this point it is Important to note that you want to select "Release" just to the left of "x86" at the very top, middle, in this screenshot.

The 'Release' Option allows for actually uploading the entire sketch to your board of choice.

When you are ready to 'Upload' your version of the Blink.ino sketch, you will click on the button that looks like a PLAY button with a circle around it; far right and at the bottom of this screenshot:

That is a brief Tutorial on how to setup these tools for a coding experience that is lacking in the Arduino IDE.

If you have any questions, Please comment below and I will try my best to answer them!

Please note, these setup instructions assume that you already have either the Arduino.cc or Arduino.org IDE installed.

Running a generic Neo-Pixel 4x4 panel on the Teensy - Experiment

Starting with a basic Teensy LC and a generic 4x4 Neo-Pixel panel and Visuino I was able to make a 16 RGB LED light display, just with an included Visuino Demo.

First I started with Visuino Beta 65 and the Demo file, MixedGroupsDemo.owarduino.  

Then I switched the boards section to the Teensy LC.

In the Demo file, I added a 6th pixel to the third group to account for the difference in the Demo's 15 RGB pixels and my panel 16 RGB pixels.

Please note the 3rd group here, 

the GREEN one is a 6, not a 5

Next, without any further delay, is the Video, 

that I know you all have been waiting for.