The Energia IDE is very simple and easy to use. It is a fork of the Arduino IDE and hence works similar to the Arduino IDE. It even looks like the Arduino IDE, the only major difference being the color of the IDE.

Let’s see how to use it with the help of the Blink example that comes in the Built-In examples with the IDE.

1.  Open the Energia IDE from the folder you unzipped it in.

2.  In the File tab, go to the Examples option. Here you will find a list of all the Built-In examples that come along with the IDE. You will also see Examples From Libraries below the Built-In examples.

Here, we will see the Blink example which blinks the LED on the TI Launchpad board.

3.  Once you click on Blink, a new window will open with the sketch (Energia refers to codes written in its IDE as a sketch) for Blink.

4.  Before burning this code into the TI Launchpad board, we need to configure the IDE for the board we need to burn this sketch into. We also need to select the appropriate communication port and the method used for burning the code.

5.  Go to the Tools tab and find the Board option in it. It will have a list of the TI Launchpad Boards in it. Select the board you are using from that list. Here, we have used MSP-EXP430G2553LP Board. If the board you are using doesn’t appear in the list, click on the Board Manager at the top of the list. Select the family of boards from the list corresponding to your board and install it. If the board you are using does not appear in the Board Manager list, it means that Energia does not support that board.

6.  Now we need to select the appropriate communication port over which the computer/laptop will communicate with the TI Launchpad board. Under the Tools tab, you will find the Port option. Select the port you have connected the TI Launchpad board to from the Ports available on this list.

7.  Now that we have selected the board and the communication port, we need to select the appropriate programmer.

We will be using the dslite programmer.

8.  On the Energia IDE, you will find 6 unique buttons. These are described below.

•  This is used to verify (Energia refers to compiling as verifying) the sketch.
•  This is used to upload (Energia refers burning a program as uploading) the sketch onto the board.
•  This is used to create a new sketch.
•  This is used to open am existing sketch or built-in example.
•   This is used to save the current sketch.
•  This is used to open the serial monitor that comes with the Energia IDE.

Note: You can use any other serial terminal program if you want instead of the Energia serial monitor. The serial monitor that comes with Energia IDE can open only one serial port for communication. If you need to observe multiple ports (multiple Energia boards connected to the same computer/laptop), you need to use other programs like Putty, RealTerm, TeraTerm, etc.

9. Now that we have selected the appropriate board, communication port, and programmer, we need to upload the Blink sketch onto the board.

We can either verify the sketch before the upload process or skip the verification process.

The IDE does the part of verifying the sketch before uploading it as a part of the upload process.

10.  Since this is a built-in example sketch, we will not get any warnings or errors upon verifying. If there are any warnings or errors, they are displayed by the IDE in the black colored area below the area for writing code. This area is shown in the image in the next point, highlighted in yellow.

11.  Now upload the sketch onto the board. When the upload process is done, you will get a done uploading message. You should be able to see the LED on your TI Launchpad board blinking at 1-second intervals.

Note: You will have to place a jumper on the pinheads near the LED in order to see the LED blinking. Without the jumper head, there is no connection between the LED pin and the LED.

MSP430 Launchpad LED Blinking Output

12.  This process needs to be followed for all the sketches that are built-in or created by the user.

Note: The latest version of the IDE (1.6.10E18) needs a few changes to be done in order to work with the MSP-EXP430G2553.

Follow the steps given below in order to overcome the issue.

1. copy <energia directory>\hardware\tools\DSLite\DebugServer\drivers\MSP430.dll to <energia directory>\hardware\tools\msp430\bin\
2. edit <energia directory>\hardware\energia\msp430\boards.txt a change the 2 occurrences of rf2500 with tilib
3. restart Energia and you should be able to upload to the MSP-EXP430G2 with MSP430G2553.

(We found this solution on the 43oh forum and one that worked for us. Here is a link to the discussion on the topic: http://forum.43oh.com/topic/9848-energia-1610r18-windows-7-launchpad-msp430g2553-dont-load-sketch/ )