15.1.1. The script editor

The editor is a full professional text editor – the same Qt Creator core that ships in commercial IDEs – trimmed to a tabbed, single-window layout so that the script about to run is always the one in front. Most of it needs no explanation: tabs along the top switch between open files, and the usual file and edit operations live in the File and Edit menus and on the toolbar buttons along the left edge. The features below are the ones worth knowing about specifically for MicroPython work.

15.1.1.1. Whitespace and undo

Indentation is syntax in Python, so the editor can render whitespace visibly – toggle Visualize Whitespace under Edit → Advanced when a script fails with an IndentationError that is invisible in the source. Undo and redo are unlimited and tracked per file across all open files.

15.1.1.2. Find and replace

The find and replace bar (Ctrl+F) supports plain text, whole-word, and regular-expression matching, with capture groups available in the replacement text and an option to preserve the case of each replaced match. Advanced Find (Ctrl+Shift+F) widens the scope from the current file to all open files or to every file under a folder on disk, and presents the matches as a clickable result list.

15.1.1.3. Code completion and call tips

The editor knows the camera’s Python API. Typing . after a module or object name opens a completion list of its functions, methods, and constants; once a name is chosen, a call tip walks through the arguments. Hovering over any API name shows its documentation in a tooltip – the same text as the library reference, without leaving the editor. Completion covers the camera-specific modules (csi, image, machine, and the rest of the library reference) in addition to the Python language itself.

A bundled Python language server checks the code as it is typed, underlining undefined names, unused imports, and syntax errors in the editor before the script ever runs – a whole class of typo crashes caught at the desk instead of on the camera.

Threshold tuples get the same treatment in reverse: select a grayscale or LAB threshold tuple in a script, right-click it, and the context menu offers to open it in the threshold editor, which writes the tuned values back into the script when confirmed with OK.

Screenshot needed

figures/editor-completion.png – the editor with a completion popup open after typing img. in a script, showing the method list and one entry’s documentation tooltip. Crop to the editor pane.

15.1.1.4. GitHub Copilot

The editor ships with GitHub Copilot support for inline AI code suggestions. It stays dormant until a GitHub account with a Copilot subscription is signed in, under the Copilot section of the preferences dialog; sign out or untick its enable box to switch it off.

15.1.1.5. Beyond Python files

The editor opens more than scripts. An image file opens in an image viewer with zoom and fit-to-screen controls – handy for inspecting saved snapshots and templates without leaving the IDE – and a binary file opens in a hex editor, useful for a quick look inside a recording or a descriptor file.

15.1.1.6. Editing outside the IDE

Scripts are plain .py files, and nothing requires them to be edited in the IDE. When a file open in the editor changes on disk – saved from another editor, pulled from version control – the IDE picks the change up when its window regains focus and reloads the file, asking first only when the copy in the editor has unsaved changes of its own.