Developing a program to control my COMP444 robotics project has snowballed past what is easily maintainable using the Arduino IDE. Having used professional IDEs for other projects, I know what a great help they can be. Despite a tight schedule and a penchant for being sidetracked by tangentially-related tasks, I decided to swap to using Eclipse (for C/C++).

Any code editor can be used to program an Arduino, even Windows TextEdit, but I was looking for the best one. Top picks according to the PYPL index include Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio, Vim, XCode, Sublime Text, Code::Blocks, Emacs, etc. (Tools used primarily for development other than C/C++ were excluded: Android Studio, IntelliJ, NetBeans, Komodo, Xamarin, pyCharm, etc.) Notepad++ is worth mentioning by itself as a popular and excellent option, as it's not on the PYPL index for some reason (probably too close to Microsoft Notepad for meaningful Google Analytics information). I chose Eclipse primarily because I thought I could get it working the fastest, being one of the most popular options, meaning plenty of community support, and having some experience using it in years past, while gaining all the advantages of a full IDE.

I followed Doug Schaefer's article, Program Your Arduino Like a Pro with the Eclipse C/C++ IDE. Another promising option appears to be the Sloeber plugin for Eclipse. I chose the former for no better reason than eclipse.org's (Schaefer's) article not having a reason to push one implementation over another and having better presentation. (The Sloeber page seemed sloppy, a red flag according to my prejudiced personal filter for digital content.)

Here's my steps:

1. Download the Eclipse Installer from the Eclipse Package Downloads page, select the 64-bit C/C++ option, and complete the installation.
2. Open Eclipse, search for "Arduino" in the Marketplace (Help > Eclipse Marketplace...), then select and install the Eclipse C++ IDE for Arduino 3.0. (Restart Eclipse.)
3. Add platforms and libraries with the Aruduino Downloads Manager (Help > Arduino Downloads Manager) by clicking Add and selecting those you want. I picked all of the "arduino" platforms. I didn't need any libraries other than Device Control/Servo, but I also picked Communication/WiiChuck, Data Processing/Plotter, Data Processing/TimedPID, Device Control/RBD_Servo, Other/BasicLinearAlgebra, and Sensors/Analog Buttons because they looked interesting and useful for my current project.
4. Created a new launch configuration with the Eclipse Launch Bar, clicking the dropdown that shows , then "New Launch Target...". Select Run as the initial launch mode, then Next >, select Arduino and hit Next >. Name the target, set the serial port (same as Arduino IDE, COM3 for me), pick your board and programmer (SparkFun Redboard is the Arduino/Genuino Uno and USBasp), and click Finish.
   
   
5. Create a new project: File > New > C/C++ Project > Arduino C++ Sketch; and call and place it what/whereever you wish (mine is practice-Eclipse-Arduino). Finalizing this drops us back to the workspace where we see the familiar Arduino body.
   
   
   
6. Now we setup the serial monitor. I wrote a short serial program to test it out:
   
   Hit the Run button  to compile and upload it. Open a terminal with  or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T, make sure the settings are correct, as below. (You should only have to change the Baud Rate, 9600 for the above sketch.) It should just work!
   

Now that the basics are working, I should get back to work. I imagine I may have to get out of the setup() and loop() code structure, but I'll leave that path for whenever it comes up...